Chapter 1

Lying, left hand for a pillow, on the shingled slant of the roof, there in the shade of the gable, staring at the cloud-curdles in afternoon's blue pool, I seemed to see, between blinks, above the campus and myself, an instant piece of sky-writing.

DO YOU SMELL ME DED? I read.

A moment's appraisal and it was gone. I shrugged. I also sniffed at the small breeze that had decided but moments before to pass that way.

"Sorry," I mumbled to the supernatural journalist. "No special stinks.”

I yawned then and stretched. I had been dozing, had regarded the tag end of a dream, I supposed. Probably just as well that I could not recall it. I glanced at my watch. It indicated that I was late for my appointment. But then, it could be wrong. In fact, it usually was.

I edged forward into a 45° hunker, my heels still resting against the ice-catching eyelets, my right hand now upon the gable. Five stories below me the Quad was a study in green and concrete, shade and sunlight, people in slow motion, a fountain like a phallus that had taken a charge of buckshot at its farther end. Beyond the phountain lay Jefferson Hall, and up on Jeff's third floor was the office of my latest adviser, Dennis Wexroth. I patted my hip pocket. The edge of my schedule card still jutted there. Good.

To go in, go down, go across and go up seemed an awful waste of time when I was already up. Although it was somewhat out of keeping with the grand old tradition as well as my personal practice to do much climbing before sundown, the way across-with all the buildings connected or extremely adjacent-was easy and reasonably inconspicuous.

I worked my way about the gable and over to the far eave. About three feet outward and six down, an easy jump, and I was on the library's flat roof and trotting. Across the roofs and about the chimneys on a row of converted townhouses then. Over the chapel.

Quasimodolike-a bit tricky there-along a ledge, down a drainpipe, another ledge, through the big oak tree and over to the final ledge. Excellent! I had saved six or seven minutes, I was certain.

And I felt most considerate as I peered in the window, for the clock on the wall showed me that I was three minutes early.

Wide-eyed, openmouthed, Dennis Wexroth's head rose from its reading angle, turned slowly, darkened then, continued upward, dragged the rest of him to his feet, about his desk, toward me.

I was looking back over my shoulder to see what he was glaring at when he heaved the window open and said, "Mister Cassidy, just what the hell are you doing?”

I turned back. He was gripping the sill as if it were very important to him and I had sought its removal.

"I was waiting to see you," I said. "I'm three minutes early for my appointment.”

"Well, you can just go back down and come in the same way any . . ." he began. Then: "No! Wait!" he said. "That might make me an accomplice to something. Get in here!”

He stepped aside and I entered the room. I wiped my hand on my trousers, but he declined to take it.

He turned away, walked back to his desk, sat dawn.

"There is a rule against climbing around on the buildings," he said.

"Yes," I said, "but it's just a matter of form. They had to pass something as a disclaimer, that's all. Nobody pays any atten-”

"You," he said, shaking his head. "You are the reason for the rule. I may be new here, but I've done my homework so far as you are concerned.”

"It's not really very important," I said. "So long as I'm discreet about it, nobody much cares-”

"Acrophilia!" he snorted, slapping the folder that lay on his desk. "You once bought a screwball medical opinion that saved you from being suspended, that even got you some sympathy, made you a minor celebrity. I just read it. It's a piece of garbage. I don't buy it.

I don't even think it's funny.”

I shrugged. "I like to climb things," I said. "I like to be up in high places. I never said it was funny, and Doctor Marko is not a screwball.”

He emitted a labial consonant and began flipping through pages in the folder. I was beginning to feel a dislike for the man. Close-cut, sandy hair, a neat, matching beard and mustache that almost hid his mean little mouth. Somewhere in his mid-twenties, I guessed. Here he was getting nasty and authoritarian and not even offering me a seat, and I was probably several years his senior and had taken pains to get there on time. I had met him only once before, briefly, at a party. He had been stoned at the time and considerably more congenial. Hadn't seen my file yet, of course. Still, that should make no difference.

He should deal with me de novo, not on the basis of a lot of hearsay. But advisers come and go-general, departmental, special. I've dealt with the best and I've dealt with the worst. Offhand, I can't say who was my favorite. Maybe Merimee. Maybe Crawford.

Merimee helped me head off a suspension action. A very decent fellow. Crawford almost tricked me into graduating, which would probably have gotten him the Adviser of the Year award. A good guy, nevertheless. Just a little too creative. Where are they now?

I drew up a chair and made myself comfortable, lighting a cigarette and using the wastebasket for an ashtray. He did not seem to notice but went on paging through the materials.

Several minutes passed in this fashion, then: "All right," he said, "I'm ready for you.”

He looked up at me then and he smiled.

"This semester. Mister Cassidy, we are going to graduate you," he said.

I smiled back at him.

"That, Mister Wexroth, will be a cold day in hell," I said.

"I believe that I have been a little more thorough than my predecessors," he replied. "I take it you are up on all the university's regulations?”

"I go over them fairly regularly.”

"I also assume you are aware of all the courses being offered this coming semester?”

"That's a safe assumption.”

He withdrew a pipe and pouch from within his jacket, and he began loading the thing slowly, with great attention to each fleck and strand, seeming to relish the moment. I had had him pegged as a pipe smoker all along.

He bit it, lit it, puffed it, withdrew it and stared at me through the smoke.

"Then we've got you on a mandatory graduation," he said, "under the departmental major rule.”

"But you haven't even seen my preregistration card.”

"It doesn't matter. I've had every choice you could make, every possible combination of courses you might select to retain your full-time status worked out by one of the computer people. I had all of these matched up with your rather extensive record, and in each instance I've come up with a way of getting rid of you. No matter what you select, you are going to complete a departmental major in something.”

"Sounds as if you've been pretty thorough.”

"I have.”

"Mind if I ask why you are so eager to get rid of me?”

"Not at all," he replied. "The fact of the matter is, you are a drone.”

"A drone?”

"A drone. You don't do anything but hang around.”

"What's wrong with that?”

"You are a liability, a drain on the intellectual and emotional resources of the academic community.”

"Crap," I observed. "I've published some pretty good papers.”

"Precisely. You should be off teaching or doing research-with a couple degrees after your name-not filling a space some poor undergrad could be occupying.”

I dismissed a mental picture of the poor would-be undergrad-lean, hollow-eyed, nose and fingertips pressed against the glass, his breath fogging it, slavering after the education I was denying him-and I said, "Crap again. Why do you really want to get rid of me?”

He stared at his pipe, almost thoughtfully, for a moment, then said, "When you get right down to basics, I just plain don't like you.”

"But why? You hardly know me.”

"I know about you-which is more than sufficient." He tapped my file. "It's all in there,”

he said. "You represent an attitude for which I have no respect.”

"Would you mind being more specific?”

"All right," he said, turning the pages to one of many markers that protruded from the file. "According to the record, you have been an undergraduate here for-let me see- approximately thirteen years.”

"That sounds about right.”

"Full-time," he added.

"Yes, I've always been full-time.”

"You entered the university at an early age. You were a precocious little fellow. Your grades have always been quite good.”

"Thank you.”

"That was not a compliment. It was an observation. Lots of grad material too, but always for undergrad credit. Quantity-wise, in fact, there is the substance of a couple of doctorates in here. Several composites suggest themselves-”

"Composites do not come under the departmental major rule.”

"Yes. I am well aware of that. We are both quite well aware of that. It has become obvious over the years that your intention is to retain your full-time status but never to graduate.”

"I never said that.”

"An acknowledgment would be redundant. Mister Cassidy. The record speaks for itself. Once you had all the general requirements out of the way, it was still relatively simple for you to avoid graduation by switching your major periodically and obtaining a new set of special requirements. After a time, however, these began to overlap. It soon became necessary for you to switch every semester. The rule concerning mandatory graduation on completion of a departmental major was, as I understand it, passed solely because of you. You have done a lot of sidestepping, but this time you are all out of sides to step to. Time runs, the clock will strike. This is the last interview of this sort you will ever have.”

"I hope so. I just came to get my card signed.”

"You also asked me a question.”

"Yes, but I can see now that you're busy and I'm willing to let you off the hook.”

"That's quite all right. I'm here to answer your questions. To continue, when I first learned of your case, I was naturally curious as to the reason for your peculiar behavior.

When I was offered the opportunity of becoming your adviser, I made it my business to find out-”

" 'Offered'? You mean you're doing this by choice?”

"Very much so. I wanted to be the one to say goodbye to you, to see you off on your way into the real world.”

"If you'd just sign my card-”

"Not yet. Mister Cassidy. You wanted to know why I dislike you. When you leave here-via the door-you will know. To begin with, I have succeeded where my predecessors failed. I am familiar with the provisions of your uncle's will.”

I nodded. I had had a feeling he was driving that way.

"You seem to have exceeded the scope of your appointment," I said. "That is a personal matter.”

"When it touches upon your activities here, it comes within my area of interest-and speculation. As I understand it, your late uncle left a fairly sizable fund out of which you receive an extremely liberal allowance for so long as you are a full-time student working on a degree. Once you receive a degree of any sort, the allowance terminates and the balance remaining in the fund is to be distributed to representatives of the Irish Republican Army. I believe I have described the situation fairly?”

"As fairly as an unfair situation can be described, I suppose. Poor, batty old Uncle Albert. Poor me, actually. Yes, you have the facts straight.”

"It would seem that the man's intention was to provide for your receiving an adequate education-no more, no less-and then leaving it to you to make your own way in the world. A most sensible notion, as I see it.”

"I had already guessed that.”

"And one to which you, obviously, do not subscribe.”

"True. Two very different philosophies of education are obviously involved here.”

"Mister Cassidy, I believe that economics rather than philosophy controls the situation.

For thirteen years you have contrived to remain a full-time student without taking a degree so that your stipend would continue. You have taken gross advantage of the loophole in your uncle's will because you are a playboy and a dilettante, with no real desire ever to work, to hold a job, to repay society for suffering your existence. You are an opportunist. You are irresponsible. You are a drone.”

I nodded. "All right. You have satisfied my curiosity as to your way of thinking. Thank you.”

His brows fell into a frown and he studied my face.

"Since you may be my adviser for a long while," I said, "I wanted to know something of your attitude. Now I do.”

He chuckled. "You are bluffing.”

I shrugged. "If you'll just sign my card, I'll be on my way.”

"I do not have to see that card," he said slowly, "to know that I will not be your adviser for a long while. This is it, Cassidy, an end to your flippancy.”

I withdrew the card and extended it. He ignored it and continued. "And with your demoralizing effect here at the university, I cannot help but wonder how your uncle would feel if he knew how his wishes were being thwarted. He-”

"I'll ask him when he comes around," I said. "But when I saw him last month he wasn't exactly turning over.”

"Beg pardon? I didn't quite . . .”

"Uncle Albert was one of the fortunate ones in the Bide-A-Wee scandal. About a year ago. Remember?”

He shook his head slowly. "I'm afraid not. I thought your uncle was dead. In fact, he has to be. If the will . . .”

"It's a delicate philosophical point," I said. "Legally, he's dead all right. But he had himself frozen and stored at Bide-A-Wee-one of those cryonic outfits. The proprietors proved somewhat less than scrupulous, however, and the authorities had him moved to a different establishment along with the other survivors.”

"Survivors?”

"I suppose that's the best word. Bide-A-Wee had over five hundred customers on their books, but they actually only had around fifty on ice. Made a tremendous profit that way.”

"I don't understand. What became of the others?”

"Their better components wound up in gray-market organ banks. That was another area where Bide-A-Wee turned a handsome profit.”

"I do seem to remember hearing about it now. But what did they do with the. . .

remains?”

"One of the partners also owned a funeral establishment. He just disposed of things in the course of that employment.”

"Oh. Well . . . Wait a minute. What did they do if someone came around and wanted to view a frozen friend or relative?”

"They switched nameplates. One frozen body seen through a frosted panel looks pretty much like any other-sort of like a popsicle in cellophane. Anyway, Uncle Albert was one of the ones they kept for show. He always was lucky.”

"How did they finally get tripped up?”

"Tax evasion. They got greedy.”

"I see. Then your uncle actually could show up for an accounting one day?”

"There is always that possibility. Of course, there have been very few successful revivals.”

"The possibility doesn't trouble you?”

"I deal with things as they arise. So far. Uncle Albert hasn't.”

"Along with the university and your uncle's wishes, I feel obliged to point out that you are doing violence in another place as well.”

I looked all around the room. Under my chair, even.

"I give up," I said.

"Yourself.”

"Myself?”

"Yourself. By accepting the easy economic security of the situation, you are yielding to inertia. You are ruining your chances of ever really amounting to anything. You are growing in your dronehood.”

"Dronehood?”

"Dronehood. Hanging around and not doing anything.”

"So you are really acting in my best interests if you succeed in kicking me out, huh?”

"Precisely.”

"I hate to tell you, but history is full of people like you. We tend to judge them harshly.”

"History?”

"Not the department. The phenomenon.”

He sighed and shook his head. He accepted my card, leaned back, puffed on his pipe, began to study what I had written.

I wondered whether he really believed he was doing me a favor by trying to destroy my way of life. Probably.

"Wait a minute," he said. "There's a mistake here.”

"No mistake.”

"The hours are wrong.”

"No. I need twelve and there are twelve.”

"I'm not disputing that, but-”

"Six hours, personal project, interdisciplinary, for art history credit, on site, Australia in my case.”

"You know it should really be anthropology. But that would complete a major. But that's not what I'm-”

"Then three hours of comparative lit with that course on the troubadours. I'm still safe with that, and I can catch it on video-the same as with that one-hour currentevents thing for social-science credit. Safe there, and that's ten hours. Then two hours' credit for advanced basket weaving, and that's twelve. Home free.”

"No, sir! You are not! That last one is a three-hour course, and that gives you a major in it!”

"Haven't seen Circular fifty-seven yet, have you?”

"What?”

"It's been changed.”

"I don't believe you.”

I glanced at his IN basket.

"Read your mail.”

He snatched at the basket; he rifled it. Somewhere near the middle of things he found the paper. Clocking his expressions, I noted disbelief, rage and puzzlement within the first five seconds. I was hoping for despair, but you can't have everything all at once.

Frustration and bewilderment were what remained when he turned to me once again and said, "How did you do it?”

"Why must you look for the worst?”

"Because I've read your file. You got to the instructor some way, didn't you?”

"That's most ignoble of you. And I'd be a fool to admit it, wouldn't I?”

He sighed. "I suppose so.”

He withdrew a pen, clicked it with unnecessary force and scrawled his name on the "Approved by" line at the bottom of the card.

Returning the card, he observed, "This is the closest you've come, you know. It was just under the wire this time. What are you going to do for an encore?”

"I understand that two new majors will be instituted next year. I suppose I should see the proper departmental adviser if I am interested in changing my area.”

"You'll see me," he said, "and I will confer with the person involved.”

"Everyone else has a departmental adviser.”

"You are a special case requiring special handling. You are to report here again next time.”

"All right," I said, filing the card in my hip pocket as I rose. "See you then.”

As I headed for the door he said, "I'll find a way.”

I paused on the threshold.

"You," I said pleasantly, "and the Flying Dutchman.”

I closed the door gently behind me.

Chapter 2.

Incidents and fragments, bits-and-pieces time. Like- "You're not joking?”

"I'm afraid not.”

"I'd rather it looked like hell for the obvious reasons," she said, wide-eyed, backing toward the door we had just come through.

"Well, whatever happened, it's done. We'll just clean up and...”

She reopened the door, that long, lovely, wild hair dancing as she shook her head vigorously.

"You know, I'm going to think this over a little more," she said, stepping back into the hall.

"Aw, come on, Ginny. It's nothing serious.”

"Like I said, I'll think about it.”

She began closing the door.

"Should I call you later, then?”

"I don't think so.”

"Tomorrow?”

"Tell you what, I'll call you.”

Click.

Hell. She might as well have slammed it. End of Phase One in my search for a new roommate. Hal Sidmore, who had shared the apartment with me for some time, had gotten married a couple of months back. I missed him, as he had been a boon companion, good chess player and general heller about town, as well as an able explicator of multitudes of matters. I had decided to look for something a bit different in my next roommate, however. I thought I had spotted that indefinable quality in Ginny, late one night while climbing the radio tower behind the Pi Phi house, as she was about her end- of-day business in her third-floor room there. Things had gone swimmingly after that. I had met her at ground level, we had been doing things together for over a month and I had just about succeeded in persuading her to consider a change of residence for the coming semester. Then this.

"Damn!" I decided, kicking at a drawer that had been pulled from the desk, dumped and dropped to the floor. No sense in going after her right now. Clean up. Let her get over things. See her tomorrow.

Somebody had really torn the place apart, had gone through everything. The furniture had even been moved about and the covers pulled off the cushions. I sighed as I regarded it. Worse than the aftermath of the wildest of parties. What a rotten time for breaking and entering and breaking. It wasn't the best of neighborhoods, but it was hardly the worst.

This sort of thing had never happened to me before. Now, when it did, it had to happen at precisely the wrong time, frightening away my warm and lissome companion. On top of this, something of course had to be missing.

I kept some cash and a few semivaluables in the top drawer of the bureau in my bedroom. I kept more cash tacked in the toe of an old boot on a rack in the corner. I hoped that the vandal had been satisfied with the top drawer. That was the uninspired idea behind the arrangement.

I went to see.

My bedroom was in better order than the living room, though it too had suffered some depredation. The bed clothing had been pulled off and the mattress was askew. Two of the bureau drawers were open but undumped. I crossed the room, opened the top drawer and looked inside.

Everything was still in place, even the money. I moved to the rack, checked my boot.

The roll of bills was still where I had left it.

"There's a good fellow. Now toss it here" came a familiar voice that I could not quite place in that context.

Turning, I saw that Paul Byler, Professor of Geology, had just emerged from my closet. His hands were empty, not that he needed a weapon to back up any threat. While short, he was powerfully built, and I had always been impressed by the quantity of scar tissue on those knuckles. An Australian, he had started out as a mining engineer in some pretty raw places, only later picking up his graduate work in geology and physics and getting into teaching.

But I had always been on excellent terms with the man, even after I had departed my geology major. I had known him socially for several years. Hadn't seen him for the past couple of weeks, though, as he had taken some leave. I had thought he was out of town.

So: "Paul, what's the matter?" I said. "Don't tell me you did all this messing?”

"The boot, Fred. Just pass me the boot.”

"If you're short on cash, I'll be glad to lend you-”

"The boot!”

I took it to him. I stood there and watched as he plunged his hand inside, felt about, withdrew my roll of bills. He snorted then and thrust the boot and the money back at me, hard. I dropped both, because he had caught me in the abdomen.

Before I even completed a brief curse, he had seized me by the shoulders, spun me about and shoved me into the armchair beside the open window where the curtains fluttered lightly in the breeze.

"I don't want your money, Fred," he said, glaring at me. "I just want something you have that belongs to me. Now you had better give me an honest answer. Do you know what I'm talking about or don't you?”

"I haven't the foggiest," I said. "I don't have anything of yours. You could have just called me and asked me that. You didn't have to come busting in here and-”

He slapped me. Not especially hard. Just enough to jolt me and leave me silent.

"Fred," he said, "shut up. Just shut up and listen. Answer when I ask you a question.

That's all. Keep the comments for another day. I'm in a hurry. Now I know you are lying because I've already seen your ex-roommate Hal. He says you have it, because he left it here when he moved out. What I am referring to is one of my models of the star-stone, which he picked up after a poker party in my lab. Remember?”

"Yes," I said. "If you had just called me and ask-”

He slapped me again. "Where is it?”

I shook my head, partly to clear it and partly in negation.

"I . . . I don't know," I said.

He raised his hand.

"Wait! I'll explain! He had that thing you gave him out on the desk, in the front room, was using it for a paperweight. I'm sure he took it with him-along with all his other stuff- when he moved out. I haven't seen it for a couple of months. I'm sure of that.”

"Well, one of you is lying," he said, "and you're the one I've got.”

He swung again, but this time I was ready for him. I ducked and kicked him in the groin.

It was spectacular. Almost worth staying to watch, as I had never kicked anyone in the groin before. The cold, rational thing to do next would be to go for the back of his neck while he was doubled over that way, preferably spiking him with my elbow. However, I was not in a cold, rational mood just then. To be honest about it, I was afraid of the man, scared to get too close to him. Having had small experience with groin-kicked persons, I had no idea how long it might be before he straightened up and came at me.

Which is why I took to my own element rather than stay there and face him.

I was over the arm of the chair, had the window the rest of the way up and was out it in an instant. There was a narrow ledge along which I moved until I had hold of the drainpipe, off about eight feet to the right.

I could continue on around it, go up or down. But I decided to remain where I was. I felt secure.

Not too much later his head emerged from the window, turned my way. He studied the ledge and cursed me. I lit a cigarette and smiled.

"What are you waiting for?" I said when he paused for breath. "Come on out. You may be a lot tougher than I am, Paul, but if you come out here only one of us is going back in again. That's concrete down there. Come on. Talk is cheap. Show me.”

He took a deep breath and his grip tightened on the sill. For a moment I actually thought he was going to try it. He looked downward, though, and he looked back at me.

"All right, Fred," he said, getting control of his lecture voice. "I'm not that big a fool.

You win. But listen, please. What I've said is true. I've got to have that thing back. I would not have acted as I did if it were not very important. Please tell me, if you will, whether you were telling me the truth.”

I was still smarting from those slaps. I did not feel like being a nice guy. On the other hand, it must have meant a lot to him to make him behave as he had, and I had nothing to gain by not telling him. So: "It was the truth," I said.

"And you have no idea where it might be?”

"None.”

"Could someone have picked it up?”

"Easily.”

"Who?”

"Anybody. You know those parties we had. Thirty, forty people in there.”

He nodded and gnashed his teeth.

"All right," he said then. "I believe you. Try and think, though. Can you recall anything-anything at all-that might give me a lead?”

I shook my head. "Sorry.”

He sighed. He sagged. He looked away.

"Okay," he said finally. "I'm going now. I suppose you plan on calling the police?”

"Yes.”

"Well, I'm in no position to ask favors, or to threaten you, at the moment. But this is both a request and a warning of whatever future reprisal I might be able to manage. Don't call them. I've troubles enough without having to worry about them, too.”

He turned away.

"Wait," I said.

"What?”

"Maybe if you tell me what the problem is . . .”

"No. You can't help me.”

"Well, supposing the thing turned up? What should I do with it?”

"If that should happen, put it in a safe place and keep your mouth shut about having it.

I'll call you periodically. Tell me about it then.”

"What's so important about it?”

"Un-uh," he said, and was gone.

A whispered question from behind me-"Do you see me, red?"-and I turned, but there was no one there, though my ears still rang from the boxing they had taken. I decided then that it was a bad day and I took to the roof for some thinking. A traffic-copter buzzed me later, and I was queried as to suicidal intentions. I told the cop I was refribbing shingles, though, and that seemed to satisfy him.

Incidents and fragments continued- "I did try phoning you. Three times," he said. "No answer.”

"Did you consider stopping by in person?”

"I was about to. Just now. You got here first.”

"Did you call the police?”

"No. I've got a wife to worry about as well as myself.”

"I see.”

"Did you call them?”

"No.”

"Why not?”

"I'm not certain. Well, I guess it's that I'd like a better idea as to what's going on before I blow the whistle on him.”

Hal nodded, a dark-eyed study in bruise and Band-aid.

"And you think I know something you don't?”

"That's right.”

"Well, I don't," he said, taking a sip, wincing and stirring more sugar into his iced tea.

"When I answered the door earlier, there he was. I let him in and he started asking me about that damned stone. I told him everything I could remember, but he still wasn't satisfied. That was when he began pushing me around.”

"Then what happened?”

"I remembered some more things.”

"Uh-huh. Like you remembered I have it-which I don't-so he'd come rough me up and leave you alone.”

"No! That's not it at all!" he said. "I told him the truth. I left it there when I moved out.

As to what became of it afterwards, I have no idea.”

"Where'd you leave it?”

"Last I remember seeing it, it was on the desk.”

"Why didn't you take it with you?”

"I don't know. I was tired of looking at it, I guess.”

He got up and paced his living room, paused and looked out the window. Mary was off attending a class, a thing she had also been doing that afternoon when Paul had stopped by, had his conference with Hal and started the ball rolling down the alley that led to me.

"Hal," I said, "are you telling me the whole truth and nothing but?”

"Everything important.”

"Come on.”

He turned his back to the window, looked at me, looked away.

"Well," he said, "he claimed the thing we had was his.”

I ignored the "we.”

"It was," I said, "once. But I was there when he gave it to you. Title passed.”

But Hal shook his head. "Not that simple," he said.

"Oh?”

He returned to sit with his iced tea. He drummed his fingers on the tabletop, took a quick sip, looked at me again.

"No," he said. "You see, the one we had was really his. Remember that night we got it?

We played cards in his lab till pretty late. The six stones were on a shelf above the counter. We noticed them early and asked him about them several times. He would just smile and say something mysterious or change the subject. Then, as, the night wore on and after he'd had more to drink, he began talking about them, told us what they were.”

"I remember," I said. "He told us he had been to see the star-stone, which had just that week been received from the aliens and put on display in New York. He had taken hundreds of photographs through all sorts of filters, filled a notebook with observations, collected all the data he could. Then he had set out to construct a model of the thing. Said he was going to find a way to produce them cheaply, to sell them as novelty items. The half dozen on his shelf represented his best efforts at that point. He thought they were pretty good.”

"Right. Then I noticed that there were several rejects in the waste bin beside the counter. I picked out the bestlooking one and held it up to the light. It was a pretty thing, just like the others. Paul smiled when he saw that I had it, and he said, 'You like it?' I told him that I did. 'Keep it,' he said.”

"So you did. That's the way I remember it, too.”

"Yes, but there was more to it than that," he said. "I took it back to the table with me and set it down next to my money-so that each time I reached over for some change, I automatically glanced at it. After a time I became aware of a tiny flaw, a little imperfection at the base of one of the limbs. It was quite insignificant, but it irritated me more and more each time that I looked at it. So, when you two left the room later, to bring in more cold beer and sodas, I took it over and switched it with one of those on the shelf.”

"I begin to see.”

"Okay, okay! I probably shouldn't have done it. I didn't see any harm in it at the time.

They were just prototype souvenirs he was fooling with, and the difference wasn't even noticeable unless you were looking hard.”

"He'd noticed it the first time around.”

"Which was good reason for him to consider them perfect and not be looking again.

And what difference did it make, really? Even in the absence of a six-pack the answer seems obvious.”

"It sounds all right, I'll give you that. But the fact is that he did check-and it also seems that they were more important than he had indicated. I wonder why?”

"I've been doing a lot of thinking," he said. "The first thing that occurred to me was that the souvenir business was just a story he made up because he wanted to show them off to us and he had to tell us something. Supposing he had been approached by someone from the UN to produce a model-several models-for them? The original is priceless, irreplaceable and on display to the public. To guard against theft or someone with a compulsion and a sledgehammer, it would seem wisest to keep it locked away and put a phony one in the showcase. Paul would be a logical choice for the job. Whenever anyone talks crystallography, his name comes up.”

"I could buy parts of that," I said, "but the whole thing doesn't hang together. Why get so upset over the flawed specimen when he could just manufacture another? Why not simply write off the one we've lost?”

"Security?”

"If that's so, we didn't break it. He did. Why shove us around and bring it to mind when we were doing a good job forgetting about it? No, that doesn't seem to jibe.”

"All right, what then?”

I shrugged.

"Insufficient data," I said, getting to my feet. "If you decide to call the police, be sure to tell them that the thing he was looking for was something you'd stolen from him.”

"Aw, Fred, that's hitting below the belt.”

"It's true, though. I wonder what the intrinsic value of the thing was? I forget where they draw the misdemeanor felony line.”

"Okay, you've made your point. What are you going to do?”

I shrugged. "Nothing, I guess. Wait and see what happens, I suppose. Let me know if you think of anything else.”

"All right. You do the same?”

"Yes." I started toward the door.

"Sure you won't stay for dinner?" he said.

"No, thanks. I've got to run.”

"See you, then.”

"Right. Take it easy.”

Walking past a darkened bakery. Play of night and light on glass. DO YOU TASTE ME BRED? I read. I hesitated, turned, saw where shadows had anagrammatized a bake sale, sniffed, hurried on.

Bits and pieces- Near midnight, as I was trying a new route up the cathedral, I thought that I counted an extra gargoyle. As I moved closer, though, I saw that it was Professor Dobson atop the buttress. Drunk again and counting stars, I guessed.

I continued, coming to rest on a nearby ledge.

"Good evening. Professor.”

"Hello, Fred. Yes, it is, isn't it? Beautiful night I was hoping you'd pass this way. Have a drink.”

"Low tolerance," I said. "I seldom indulge.”

"Special occasion," he suggested.

"Well, a little then.”

I accepted the bottle he extended, took a sip.

"Good. Very good," I said, passing it back. "What is it? And what's the occasion?”

"A very, very special cognac I've been saving for over twenty years, for tonight. The stars have finally run their fiery routes to the proper places, positioned with elegant cunning, possessed of noble portent.”

"What do you mean?”

"I'm retiring, getting out of this lousy rat race.”

"Oh, congratulations. I hadn't heard.”

"That was by design. Mine. I can't stand formal goodbyes. Just a few more loose ends to splice, and I'll be ready to go. Next week probably.”

"Well, I hope you have an enjoyable time of it. It is not often that I meet someone with the interest we share. I'll miss you.”

He took a sip from his bottle, nodded, grew silent. I lit a cigarette, looked out across the sleeping town, up at the stars. The night was cool, the breeze more than a little damp.

Small traffic sounds came and went, distant, insectlike. An occasional bat interrupted my tracing of constellations.

"Alkaid, Mizar, Alioth," I murmured, "Megrez, Phecda...”

"Merak and Dubhe," he said, finishing off the Big Dipper and surprising me, both for having overheard and for knowing the rest.

"Back where I left them so many years ago," he went on. "I've a very peculiar feeling now-the thing I set out to analyze tonight. Did you ever look back at some moment in your past and have it suddenly grow so vivid that all the intervening years seemed brief, dreamlike, impersonal-the motions of a May afternoon surrendered to routine?”

"No," I said.

"One day, when you do, remember-the cognac," he said, and he took another sip and passed me the bottle. I had some more and returned it to him.

"They did actually creep, though, those thousands of days. Petty pace, and all that," he continued. "I know this intellectually, though something else is currently denying it. I am aware of it particularly, because I am especially conscious of the difference between that earlier time and this present. It was a cumulative thing, the change. Space travel, cities under the sea, the advances in medicine-even our first contact with the aliens-all of these things occurred at different times and everything else seemed unchanged when they did.

Petty pace. Life pretty much the same but for this one new thing. Then another, at another time. Then another. No massive revolution. An incremental process is what it was. Then suddenly a man is ready to retire, and this gives rise to reflection. He looks back, back to Cambridge, where a young man is climbing a building. He sees those stars. He feels the texture of that roof. Everything that follows is a blur, a kaleidoscopic monochrome. He is here and he is there. Everything else is unreal. But they are two different worlds, Fred- two completely different worlds-and he didn't really see it happen, never actually caught either one in the act of going or coming. And that is the feeling that accompanies me tonight.”

"Is it a good feeling or a bad one?" I said.

"I don't really know. I haven't worked up an emotion to go with it yet.”

"Let me know when you do, will you? You've got me curious." He chuckled. I did, too.

"You know, it's funny," I said, "that you never stopped climbing.”

He was silent for a while, then said, "About the climbing, it's rather peculiar . . . Of course, it was somewhat in the nature of a tradition where I was a student, though I believe I liked it more than most. I kept at it for several years after I left the university, and then it became a more or less sporadic thing with changes of residence and lack of opportunity. I would get spells, though-compulsions, actually-when I just had to climb. I would take a holiday, then, to someplace where the architecture was congenial. I'd spend my nights scaling the buildings, clambering about rooftops and spires.”

"Acrophilia," I said.

"True. Baptizing a thing doesn't explain it, though. I never understood why I did it.

Still don't, for that matter. I did finally stop it for a long while, though. Middle-age hormone shift perhaps. Who knows? Then I came here to teach. It was when I heard of your own activities that I began thinking about it again. This led to the desire, the act, the return of the compulsion. It has been with me ever since. I've spent more time wondering why people quit climbing things than why they start.”

"It does seem the natural thing to do.”

"Exactly.”

He took another drink, offered me one. I would have liked to but I know my limits, and sitting there on the ledge, I was not about to push them. So he gestured with the bottle, skyward, then: "To the lady with the smile," he said, and drank it for me.

"To the rocks of empire," he added a moment later, with a swing and a swig to another starry sector. The wrong one, but no matter. He knew as well as I that it was still below the horizon.

He settled back, found a cigar, lit it, mused: "How many eyes per head, I wonder, in the place they regard the 'Mona Lisa'? Are they faceted? Fixed? And of what color?”

"Only two. You know that. And sort of hazel-in the pictures, anyway.”

"Must you deflate romantic rhetoric? Besides, the Astabigans have plenty of visitors from other worlds who will be viewing her.”

"True. And for that matter, the British Crown Jewels are in the custody of people with crescent-shaped pupils. Kind of lavender-eyed, I believe.”

"Sufficient," he said. "Redeeming. Thank you.”

A shooting star burned its way earthward. My cigarette butt followed it.

"I wonder if it was a fair trade?" he said. "We don't understand the Rhennius machine, and even the aliens aren't certain what the star-stone represents.”

"It wasn't exactly a trade.”

"Two of the treasures of Earth are gone and we have a couple of theirs in return. What else would you call it?”

"A link in a kula chain," I said.

"I am not familiar with the term. Tell me about it.”

"The parallel struck me as I read the details of the deal we had been offered. The kula is a kind of ceremonial voyage undertaken at various times by the inhabitants of the island groups to the east of New Guinea-the Trobriand Islanders, the Papuans of Melanesia. It is a sort of double circuit, a movement in two opposite directions among the islands. The purpose is the mutual exchange of articles having no special functional value to the various tribes involved, but possessed of great cultural significance. Generally, they are body ornaments-necklaces, bracelets-bearing names and colorful histories. They move slowly about the great circuit of the islands, accompanied by their ever-growing histories, are exchanged with considerable pomp and ceremony and serve to focus cultural enthusiasm in a way that promotes a certain unity, a sense of mutual obligation and trust. Now, the general similarity to the exchange program we are entering with the aliens seems pretty obvious. The objects become both cultural hostages and emblems of honor to the trustees. By their existence, their circulation, their display, they inevitably create something of a community feeling. This is the true purpose of a kula chain, as I see it. That's why I didn't like the word 'trade.' “

"Most interesting. None of the reports I've heard or read put it in that light-and certainly none of them compared it to the kula phenomenon. They cast it more in terms of an initiation fee for joining the galactic club, the price of admission to enjoy the benefits of trade and the exchange of ideas. That sort of thing.”

"That was just the sales pitch, to ease public protest over the relinquishment of cultural treasures. All we were really promised was reciprocity in the chain. I'm sure those other things will eventually come to pass, but not necessarily as a direct result. No. Our governments were indulging in the time-honored practice of giving the people a simple, palatable explanation of a complex thing.”

"I can see that," he said, and he stretched and yawned. "In. fact, I prefer your interpretation over the official one.”

I lit another cigarette.

"Thanks," I said. "I feel obligated to point out, though, that I have always been a sucker for ideas I find aesthetically pleasing. The cosmic sweep of the thing-an interstellar kula chain-affirming the differences and at the same time emphasizing the similarities of all the intelligent races in the galaxy-tying them together, building common traditions . . .

The notion strikes me as kind of fine.”

"Obviously," he said, gesturing then toward the higher stages of the cathedral. "Tell me, are you going to climb the rest of the way up tonight?”

"Probably, in a little while. Did you want to go now?”

"No, no. I was just curious. You generally go all the way to the top, don't you?”

"Yes. Don't you?”

"Not always. In fact, I've recently been keeping more to the middle heights. The reason I asked, though, is that I have a question, seeing that you are in a philosophical mood.”

"It's catching.”

"All right. Then tell me what it feels like when you reach the top.”

"An elation, I guess. A sense of accomplishment, sort of.”

"Up here the view is less obstructed. You can see farther, take in more of the features of the landscape. Is that it, I wonder? A better perspective?”

"Part of it, maybe. But there is always one other thing I feel when I reach the top: I always want to go just a little bit higher, and I always feel that I almost can, that I am just about to.”

"Yes. That's true," he said.

"Why do you ask?”

"I don't know. To be reminded, perhaps. That boy in Cambridge would have said the same thing you did, but I had partly forgotten. It is not just the world that has changed.”

He took another drink.

"I wonder," he said, "what it was really like? That first encounter-out there-with the aliens. Hard to believe that several years have passed since it happened. The governments obviously glossed up the story, so we will probably never know exactly what was said or done. A coincidental run-in, neither of us familiar with the system where we met.

Exploring, that's all. It was doubtless less of a shock to them, being acquainted with so many other races across the galaxy. Still . . . I remember that unexpected return. Mission accomplished. A half century ahead of schedule. Accompanied by an Astabigan scouting vessel. If an object attains the speed of light it turns into a pumpkin. Everybody knew that. But the aliens had found a way of cheating space out of its pumpkins, and they brought our ship back through the tunnel they made under it. Or across the bridge over it.

Or something like that. Lots of business for the math department. Strange feeling. Not at all the way I had thought it might be. Sort of like working your way up a steeple or a dome-really difficult going-and then, when you reach the point where you realize you've got it made, you look up and see that someone else is already there on top. So we'd run into a galactic civilization-a loose confederation of races that's been in existence for millennia. Maybe we were lucky. It could easily have taken a couple more centuries.

Maybe not, though. My feelings were, and still are, mixed. How can you go a little bit higher after something that anticlimactic? They've given us the technical know-how to build pumpkin-proof ships of our own. They've also warned us off a lot of celestial real estate. They've granted us a place in their exchange program, where we're bound to make a poor showing. Changes will be coming faster and faster in the years ahead. The world may even begin to change at a noticeable rate. What then? Once that petty-pace quality is lost, everyone may wind up as bewildered as a drunken old nightclimber on a cathedral who has been vouchsafed a glimpse of the clicking gear teeth between himself here and the towers of Cambridge there, wherever. What then? See the mainspring and turn to pumpkins? Retire? Alkaid, Mizar, Alioth, Megrez, Phecda, Merak and Dubhe . . . They have been there. They know them. Perhaps, deep down inside, I wanted us to be alone in the cosmos-to claim all of that for ourselves. Or any aliens encountered, a little behind us in everything. Greedy, proud, selfish . . . True. Now, though, we're the provincials, God help us! Enough left to drink to our health. Good! Here's to it! I spit into the face of Time that has transfigured me!”

Offhand, I could think of nothing to say, so I said nothing. Part of me wanted to agree with him, but only part. For that matter, part of me sort of wished he had not finished off the brandy.

After a time he said, "I don't think I'll be doing any more climbing tonight," and I reckoned that a good idea. I had decided against further altitude myself, and, wheeling, we narrowed our gyre, down and around and down, and I saw the good man home.

Bits and pieces. Pieces- I caught the tag end of the late late news before turning in. A fog-dispelling item involved a Paul Byler, Professor of Geology, set upon by vandals in Central Park earlier that evening, who, in addition to whatever money he was carrying, had been deprived by the rascals of heart, liver, kidneys and lungs.

Some upwelling in the dark fishbowl atop the spine later splashed dreams, patterns memory-resistant as a swirl of noctilucae, across consciousness' thin, transparent rim, save for the kinesthetic/synesthetic DO YOU FEEL ME LED? which must have lasted a timeless time longer than the rest, for later, much later, morning's third coffee touched it to a penny's worth of spin, of color.

Chapter 3

Sunflash, some splash. Darkle. Stardance.

Phaeton's solid gold Cadillac crashed where there was no ear to hear, lay burning, flickered, went out. Like me.

At least, when I woke again it was night and I was a wreck.

Lying there, bound with rawhide straps, spread-eagle, sand and gravel for pillow as well as mattress, dust in my mouth, nose, ears and eyes, dined upon by vermin, thirsty, bruised, hungry and shaking, I reflected on the words of my onetime adviser, Doctor Merimee: "You are a living example of the absurdity of things.”

Needless to say, his specialty was the novel, French, mid-twentieth century. Yet, yet do those lens-distorted eyes touch like spikes the extremities of my condition. Despite his departure from the university long ago under the cloud of a scandal involving a girl, a dwarf and a donkey-or perhaps because of this-Merimee has, over the years, come to occupy something of an oracular position in my private cosmos, and his words often return to me in contexts other than that of the preregistration interview. The hot sands had shouted them through me all afternoon, then night's frigid breezes had whispered the motto at the overdone lamb chop, my ear: "You are a living example of the absurdity of things.”

Open to a variety of interpretations when you stop to think about it, and I had plenty of time to, just then. On the one hand, it could put me on the side of the things. On the other, the living. Or, perhaps, on the other, the absurdity.

Oh yes. Hands . . .

I tried flexing my fingers, wasn't sure they obeyed. Could be they weren't really there and I was feeling a faint phantom limb effect. Just in case they still were, I thought about gangrene for a while.

Damn. And again. Frustrating, this.

The semester had opened and I had departed. After making arrangements to mail my advanced baskets to my audible partner Ralph at the crafts shop, I had headed west, tarrying equally in San Francisco, Honolulu, Tokyo. A pair of peaceful weeks had passed. Then a brief stay in Sydney. Just long enough to get into trouble climbing around that fish-swallowing-fish-swallowing-fish opera house they have out on Bennelong Point overlooking the harbor. I left town with a limp and a reprimand. Flew to Alice Springs.

Picked up the air scooter I had ordered. Took off in the early morning before the full heat of day and light of reason made their respective ways into the world. The countryside struck me as a good place to send trainee saints to get what was coming to them. It took several hours to locate the site and a few more to dig in and set things up. I did not anticipate a long stay.

There are carvings on the cliff walls, quite old, covering around 1,600 square feet. The aborigines in the area disclaim any knowledge of their origin or purpose. I had seen photographs, but I had wanted to view the real thing, try some shots of my own, take rubbings and do a little digging around.

I got into the shade of my shelter, sipped sodas and tried to think cool thoughts as I regarded the work on the rock. While I seldom indulge in graffiti, verbal or pre-, I have always felt something of empathy for those who scale walls and make their marks on them. The farther back you go, the more interesting the act becomes. Now it may be true, as some have claimed, that the impulse was first felt in the troglodytic equivalent of the john and that cave drawings got started this way, as a kind of pictorial sublimation of an even more primitive evolutionary means of marking one's territory. Nevertheless, when somebody started climbing around on walls and mountainsides to do it, it seems pretty obvious that it had grown from a pastime into an art form. I have often thought of that first guy with a mastodon in his head, staring at a cliff face or cave wall, and I have wondered what it was that set him suddenly to climbing and scraping away-what it felt like. Also, what the public's reaction was. Perhaps they made sufficient holes in him to insure the egress of the spirits behind it all. Or perhaps the bold initiative involved was present in greater abundance then, awaiting only the proper stimulus, and a bizarre response was considered as common as the wriggling of one's ears. Impossible to say.

Difficult not to care.

Whatever, I took photographs that afternoon, dug holes that evening and the following morning. Spent most of the second day taking rubbings and more photos. Continued my base trench at daysend, coming across what seemed the pieces of a blunted stone chisel.

Nothing quite that interesting turned up the next morning, though I kept at the digging long past the hour I had marked for quitting.

I retired to the shade then to nurse blisters and restore my balance of liquids while I wrote up the day's doings to that point along with some fresh thoughts that had occurred to me concerning the entire enterprise. I broke for lunch around one o'clock and doodled in my notebook again for a time afterward.

It was a little after three when a skycar passed overhead, then turned back, descending.

This troubled me a bit, as I had absolutely no official authorization for what I was doing.

On some piece of paper, card, tape, or all of these, somewhere, I was listed as "tourist." I had no idea whether a permit was required for what I was about, though I strongly suspected this. Time means a lot to me, paperwork wastes it, and I have always been a firm believer in my right to do anything I cannot be stopped from doing. Which sometimes entails not getting caught at it This is not quite so bad as it sounds, as I am a decent, civilized, likable guy. So, shading my eyes against the blue and fiery afternoon, I began searching for ways to convince the authorities of this. Lying, I decided, was probably best.

It came to earth and two men alit. Their appearance was not what I would ordinarily consider official, but allowance for custom and circumstance is always in order and I rose to meet them. The first man was around my height-that is, a little under six feet-but heavily built and beginning work on a paunch. His hair and eyes were light, he had a mild sunburn and was slick with sweat. His companion was a couple of inches taller, a couple of shades darker and brushed an unruly strand of dark brown hair back from his forehead as he advanced. He was lean and fit-looking. Both wore city shoes rather than boots, and their lack of head protection in that heat struck me as peculiar.

"You Fred Cassidy?" said the first man, coming to within a few paces of me and turning away to regard the wall and my trench.

"Yes," I said, "I am.”

He produced a surprisingly delicate handkerchief and patted his face with it.

"Find what you were looking for?" he asked.

"Wasn't looking for anything special," I said.

He chuckled. "Seems as if you did an awful lot of work, looking for nothing.”

"That's just an exploratory trench," I said.

"Why are you exploring?”

"How about telling me who are and why you want to know?" I said.

He ignored my question and went over to the trench. He paced along its length, stooping a couple of times and peering down into it. While he was doing this, the other man walked over to my shelter. I called out as he reached for my knapsack, but he opened it and dumped it anyway.

He was into my shaving kit by the time I got to him. I took hold of his arm, but he jerked it away. When I tried again, he pushed me back and I stumbled. Before I hit the ground, I had decided that they were not cops.

Rather than getting up for the next performance, I kicked out from where I lay and raked him across the shins with the heel of my boot. It was not quite as spectacular as the time I had kicked Paul Byler in the groin but was more than sufficient for my purposes. I scrambled to my feet then and caught him on the chin with a hard left. He collapsed and did not move. Not bad for one punch. If I could do it without a rock in my hand I'd be a holy terror.

My triumph lasted all of a pair of seconds. Then a sack of cannonballs was dropped on my back, or so it seemed. I was clipped from behind and borne to the ground in a very unsportsmanlike fashion. The heavyset one was much faster than his appearance had led me to believe, and as he twisted my arm up behind my back and caught hold of my hair I began to realize that little, if any, of his bulk was of the non-functional, fatty variety.

Even that central-bulge was a curbstone.

"All right, Fred. I guess it's time to have our talk," he said.

Stardance. ..

Lying there, with my abrasions, contusions, aches and confusions, I decided that Professor Merimee had come very near that still, cold center of things where definition lurks. Absurd indeed was the manner in which a dead hand was extended to give me the finger.

Lying there, cursing subvocally as I retraced my route to the moment, I became peripherally aware of a small, dark, furry form moving along my southern boundary, pausing, staring, moving again. Doubtless something carnivorous, I decided. I fought with a shudder, transformed it into a shrug. There was no point in calling out. None whatsoever. But there could be a small measure of triumph to going out this way.

So I tried to cultivate stoicism while straining after a better view of the beast. It touched my right leg and I jerked convulsively, but there was no pain. After a time, it moved over to my left. Had it just eaten my numbed foot? I wondered. Had it enjoyed it?

Moments later it turned again, advancing upward along my left side, and I finally got a better look at it. I saw a stupid-looking little marsupial that I recognized as a wombat, harmless-seeming and apparently curious, hardly lusting after my extremities. I sighed and felt some of the tension go out of me. It was welcome to sniff around all it cared to.

When you are going to die, a wombat is better than no company at all.

I thought back to the weight and the twisting of my arm, as the heavy man, ignoring his fallen companion, had sat upon me and said, "All that I really want of you is the stone. Where is it?”

"Stone?" I had said, making the mistake of adding the question mark.

The pressure on my arm increased.

"Byler's stone," he said. "You know the one I mean.”

"Yes, I do!" I agreed. "Let up, will you? It's no secret what happened. I'll tell you all about it.”

"Go ahead," be said, easing up a fraction.

So I told him about the facsimile and how we had come by it. I told him everything I knew about the damned thing.

As I feared, he did not believe a word I said. Worse yet, his partner recovered while I was talking. He was also of the opinion that I was lying, and he voted to continue the questioning.

This was done, and at one point many red and electric minutes later, as they paused to massage their knuckles and catch their breath, the tall one said to the heavy one, "Sounds pretty much like what he told Byler.”

"Like what Byler said he told him," the other corrected.

"If you talked to Paul," I said, "what more can I tell you? He seemed to know what was going on-which I don't-and I told him everything I knew about the stone: exactly what I've just told you.”

"Oh, we talked to him, all right," the tall man said, "and he talked to us. You might say he spilled his guts-”

"But I wasn't sure of him then," the fat man said, "and I'm less sure of him now. What do you do the minute he kicks off? You head for his old stamping grounds and start digging holes. I think the two of you were in this together somehow and that you had matching stories worked out in advance. I think the stone is around here someplace, and I think you have a pretty good idea how to put your hands on it. So you will tell us. You can do it the easy way or the hard way. Make your choice.”

"I've already told you-”

"You've made your choice," he said.

The period that followed proved something less than satisfactory for all parties concerned. They obtained nothing that they wanted, and so did I. My greatest fear at the time was mutilation. From a pummeling I can recover. If someone is willing to lop off fingers or poke out an eye, though, it puts talking or not talking a lot closer to a life-death situation. But once you start that business, it is akind of irreversible thing. The interrogator has to keep going himself one better for so long as there is resistance, and eventually there is a point where death becomes preferable to life for the subject. Once that point is achieved, it becomes something of a race between the two of them, with information as one goal and death the other. Of course, uncertainty as to whether the interrogator may go this far can be just about as effective as knowing that he will. In this case, I was pretty certain they were capable of it, because of Byler. But the heavy man was unhappy with Paul's story, I could see that. If I were to reach that same turning point and then win the race, he would be even less happy. Since he was unwilling to believe that I really did not have the information he was after, he must have assumed that I had fortitude to spare. I guess this determined his decision to proceed carefully, while in no way reducing the harsher eventuality.

All of which I offer as preamble to his comment, "Let's put him in the sun and watch him turn into a raisin," followed by several moments of silken brow-blotting as he awaited my response. Disappointed by it, they staked me out where I could wrinkle, darken and concentrate my sugars, while they returned to their vehicle for an ice chest.

They took up a position in the shade of my shelter, periodically strolling over to stage a beer commercial on my behalf.

Thus the afternoon. Later, they decided that a night's worth of wind, sand and stars were also necessary for my raisinhood. So they fetched sleeping bags and the makings of a meal from their vehicle and proceeded to encamp. If they thought the cooking odors would make me hungry, they were wrong. They just made me sick to my stomach.

I watched the day drive west. The man in the moon was standing on his head.

How long I had been unconscious I did not know. There were no sounds of movement from the camp and I could see no light in that direction. The wombat had crawled off to my right and settled there, making soft, rhythmic noises. He rested partly against my arm and I could feel his movements, his breathing.

I still did not know my tormentors' names, nor had I obtained a single new fact concerning the object of their inquiries, the star-stone. Not that it should actually have mattered, save in an academic sense. Not at that point. I was certain that I was going to die before very long. The night had delivered a jaw-jittering chill, and if it didn't finish me I figured my inquisitors would.

My recollection from a physiological psychology course was that it is not the absolute state of a sense organ that we perceive but rather its rate of change. Thus, if I could keep quite still, could emulate the Japanese in a steaming bath, the cold sensations should drop. But this was a matter of comfort rather than one of survival. While relief was my immediate objective, I spotted the notion of continued existence lurking at the back of my thoughts. I did not take a stick to it, however, because its methods seemed useful-which of course seems another way of saying that I am weak and irresolute. I won't argue.

There is a rhythmic breathing technique that always made me feel warmer when I practiced it in my yoga class. I commenced the exercise, but my breath escaped me in a rattling wheeze. I choked and began to cough.

The wombat turned and sprang onto my chest. I began to scream, but he stuffed his paw into my mouth, gagging me. With my left hand I reached for the scruff of his neck and had hold of it before I recalled that my left hand was supposedly bound.

He clamped down with his other three limbs, thrust his face up close to mine and whispered hoarsely, "You are complicating matters dangerously. Mister Cassidy. Release my neck immediately and keep still afterwards.”

Obviously, then, I was delirious. Comfort within the framework of my delirium seemed a desirable end, however, so I let go his neck and attempted to nod. He withdrew his paw.

"Very good," he said. "Your feet are already free. I just have to finish undoing your right hand and we will be ready to go.”

"Go?" I said.

"Shsh!" he said, moving off to the right once more.

So I shshed while he worked on the strap. It was the most interesting hallucination I had had in a long while. I sought among my various neuroses after the reason for its taking this form. Nothing suggested itself immediately. But then neuroses are tricky little devils, according to Doctor Marko, and one must give them their due when it comes to subtlety and sneakiness.

"There!" he whispered moments later. "You are free. Follow me!”

He began to move away.

"Wait!”

He paused, turned back.

"What is the matter?" he asked.

"I can't move yet. Give my circulation a chance, will you? My hands and feet are numb.”

He snorted and returned.

"Then movement is the best therapy," he said, seizing my arm and drawing me forward into a sitting position.

He was amazingly strong for a hallucination, and he continued dragging on my arm until I fell forward onto all fours. I was shaky, but I held the pose.

"Good," he said, patting my shoulder. "Come on.”

"Wait! I'm dying of thirst.”

"Sorry. I am traveling light. If you will follow me, however, I can promise you a drink.”

"When?”

"Never," he snarled, "if you just sit there. In fact, I think I hear some noises back at the camp now. Come on!”

I began crawling toward him. He said, "Keep low," which was rather unnecessary, as I was unable to get to my feet. He moved away from the camp then, heading in a generally easterly direction, roughly parallel to the ridge beside which I had been working. My progress was slow, and he paused periodically to allow me to catch up.

I followed for several minutes, and then a throbbing began in my extremities, accompanied by flashes of feeling. This collapsed me, and I croaked some obscenity as I fell. He bounded toward me, but I bit off my outburst before he could repeat the paw-in- mouth trick.

"You are a very difficult creature to rescue," he stated. "Along with your circulatory system, your judgment and self-control seem to be of a primitive order.”

I found another obscenity, but I whispered this one.

"Which you continue to demonstrate," he added. "You need do only two things-follow and keep silent. You are not very good at either. It causes one to wonder-”

"Get moving!" I said. "I'll follow!”

"And your emotions-”

I lunged at him, but he darted back and away.

I followed, ignoring everything but the desire to throttle the little beast. It did not matter that the situation was patently absurd. I had both Merimee and Marko to draw upon for theory, an opposing pair of fun-house mirrors with me in the middle, hot on the trail of the wombat. I followed, muttering, burning adrenalin, spitting out the dust he raised. I lost track of time.

The ridge grew lower, broke up. We moved inward, upward, then downward, passing through rocky corridors into a deeper darkness, moving over a way that was now all stone and gravel. I slipped once, and he was beside me in an instant.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

I started to laugh, controlled it.

"Sure, I'm fine.”

He was careful to stay out of reach.

"It is just a little farther," he said. "Then you can rest. I will fetch you nourishment.”

"I am sorry," I said, struggling to rise and failing, "but this is it. If I can wait up ahead, I can wait here. I'm out of gas.”

"The way is rocky," he said, "and they should not be able to track you. But I would feel better if you could continue just a little farther. There is an alcove off to the side, you see.

If you were in there, chances are they would pass without seeing you if they should happen to stumble on this trail. What do you say?”

"I say it sounds good, but I don't think I can do it.”

"Try again. One more time.”

"All right.”

I pushed myself up, wobbled, advanced. If I fell again, that was it, I decided. I would have to take my chances. I was feeling lightheaded as well as heavy-bodied.

But I persisted. A hundred feet perhaps . . .

He led me into a hidden drive of a cul-de-sac off to the side of the rift we had been traversing. I collapsed there and everything began to swirl and ebb.

I thought I heard him say, "I am going now. Wait here.”

"Sure thing," I seemed to reply.

Another blackness. Absolute. A parched, brittle thing/place of indeterminate size/duration. I was in it and vice versa-equally distributed and totally contained by/in the nightmare system with consciousness at C-n and chillthirstheatchillthirstheat a repeating decimal running every/anywhere on the projective plane that surrounded . . .

Flashes and imaginings . . . "Do you hear me, Fred? Do you hear me, Fred?" Water, trickling down my throat. Another blackness. Flash. Water, on my face, in my mouth.

Movement. Shadows. A moaning . . .

Moaning. Shadows, a lesser black. Flash. Flashes. A light through parted lashes, dim.

The ground below, passing. The moaning, mine.

"Do you hear me, Fred?”

"Yes," I said, "yes . . .”

The movement ceased. I overheard an exchange in a language I did not recognize.

Then the ground rose. I was deposited upon it.

"Are you awake? Can you hear me?”

"Yes, yes. I already said 'yes.' How many times-”

"Yes, he appears to be awake"-this superfluous comment in a voice I recognized as that of my friend the wombat.

There bad been more than one voice, but I could not see the speakers because of the angle at which I lay. And it was too much trouble to turn my head. I opened my eyes fully, though, and saw that the terrain was flat and pinked, though not tenderized, by the first low flames of morning.

All of the previous day's happenings slowly emerged from that place where memories stay when you are not using them. These, along with the moral I had drawn from them, were as responsible as muscle tone for my unwillingness to turn and regard my companions. And it wasn't bad just lying there. If I waited long enough, I might go away again and come back someplace else.

"I say," came a strange voice, "would you care for a peanut-butter sandwich?”

Pieces of broken reverie fell all about me. Gagging, I gained a new perspective on the ground and the long shadows that lay across it.

Because of the peculiar outline I had regarded, I was not completely surprised when I raised my head and saw a six-foot-plus kangaroo standing beside the wombat. It considered me through a pair of dark glasses as it removed a sandwich bag from its pouch.

"Peanut butter is rich in protein," it said.

Chapter 4

Hanging there, some twenty or thirty thousand miles above it, I was in a perfect position to enjoy the event if California were to break loose, slip away and vanish beneath the Pacific. Unfortunately, this did not occur. Instead, the whole world slipped away as the vessel continued its orbiting and the argument proceeded behind my back.

However, at the rate things were going it seemed possible that the San Andreas fault would have several more opportunities to present me with the desired spectacle while providing some Donnelly of the distant future with material for a book on the peculiarities of that antediluvian world and its masterfully scripted passage. When one has nothing better to do one can always hope.

As, through that port beside which I reclined, presumably resting, only half listening to the heated sounds exchanged between Charv and Ragma, I regarded the Earth and then the star-dotted field beyond it, immense in the distance of distances, I was taken by a glorious sensation doubtless compiled of recovery from my earlier discomforts, a near- metaphysical satisfaction of my acrophiliac tendencies and a general overlay of fatigue that spread slowly, lightly across me, like a delicious fall of big-flaked snow. I had never been at this altitude before, witnessing the distances, struggling to gain perspective, overwhelmed by the consideration of space, space and more space. The beauty of basic things, things as they are and things as they might be, reached out to me then, and I recalled some lines I had scribbled long ago, on regretfully giving up my math major rather than take a degree in it:

Lobachevsky alone has looked on Beauty bare.

She curves in here, she curves in here. She curves out there.

Her parallel clefts come together to tease In un-callipygianous-wise; With fewer than one hundred eighty degrees Her glorious triangle lies.

Her double-trumpet symmetry Riemann did not court- His tastes to simpler-curvedness, the buxom Teuton sort!

An ellipse is fine for as far as it goes, But modesty, away!

If I'm going to see Beauty without her clothes Give me hyperbolas any old day.

The world is curves, I've heard it said, And straightway in it nothing lies.

This then my wish, before I'm dead: To look through Lobachevsky's eyes.

I felt very drowsy. I had been into and out of consciousness periodically and had no idea as to how much time had elapsed. My watch, of course, was of no assistance. I resisted going away again, however, both to prolong the aesthetic seizure and to keep abreast of developmenta about me.

I was uncertain as to whether my rescuers were aware of my wakefulness, in that I was facing away from them, reclined and loosely restrained in a hammocklike affair of soft webbing. And even if they were aware, the fact that they were conversing in a non- terrestrial language doubtless provided them with a feeling of insulation. At some earlier time I had slowly realized that the thing that would most have surprised them probably surprised me even more. This was the discovery that, when I gave it a piece of my divided attention, I could understand what they were saying.

A difficult phenomenon to describe better, but I'll try: If I listened intently to their words, they swam away from me, as elusive as individual fish in a school of thousands. If I simply regarded the waters, however, I could follow the changing outline, the drift, pick out the splashes and sparklings. Similarly, I could tell what they were saying. Why this should be I had no idea.

And I had ceased to care after a time, for their dialogue was quite repetitious. It was considerably more rewarding to consider the curtate cycloid described by Mount Chimborazo if one were positioned somewhere above the South Pole, to see this portion of the surface as moving backward with respect to the orbital progression of the body.

My thoughts suddenly troubled me. Where had that last one really come from? It felt beautiful, but was it mine? Had some valve given way in my unconscious, releasing a river of libido that cut big chunks of miscellanea from the banks it rushed between, to deposit them in shiny layers of silt up front here where I normally take my ease? Or could it be a telepathic phenomenon-me in a psychically defenseless position, two aliens the only other minds for thousands and thousands of miles about? Was one of them a logophile?

But it did not seem that way. I was certain that my apprehension of the language, for example, was not a telepathic thing. Their speech kept coming into better and better focus-individual words and phrases now, not just abstractions of their sense. I knew that language somehow, the sounds' meanings. I was not simply reading their minds.

What then?

Feeling more than a little sacrilegious, I forced the sense of peace and pleasure transcendent out to arms' length, then shoved as hard as I could. Think, damn it! I ordered my cortex. You are on overtime. Double time for holidays of the spirit. Move!

Turning and returning, back to the thirst, the chill, the aches, the morning . . . Yes.

Australia. There I was . . .

The wombat had convinced the kangaroo, whose name I later learned was Charv, that water would benefit me more at that moment than a peanut-butter sandwich. Charv acknowledged the wombat's superior wisdom in matters of human physiology and located a flask in his pouch. The wombat, whose name I then learned to be Ragma, yanked off his paws-or, rather, pawlike mittens-displaying tiny, six-digited hands, thumb opposing, and he administered the liquid in slow doses. While this was being done, I gathered that they were alien plainclothesmen passing as local fauna. The reason was not clear.

"You are very fortunate-" Ragma told me.

After I finished choking, "I begin to appreciate the term 'alien viewpoint,'" I said, "I take it you are a member of a race of masochists.”

"Some beings thank another who saves their life," he replied. "And I was about to complete the statement, 'You are very fortunate that we happened along this way.'“

"I'll give you the first," I said. "Thanks. But coincidence is like a rubber band. Stretch it too far and it snaps. Forgive me if I suspect some design in our meeting as we did.”

"I am distressed that you focus suspicions upon us," he said, "when all that we have done is render assistance. Your cynicism index may be even higher than was indicated.”

"Indicated by whom?" I asked.

"I am not permitted to say," he replied.

He cut short a snappy rejoinder by pouring more water down my throat. Choking and considering, I modified it to "This is ridiculous!”

"I agree," he said. "But now that we are here, everything should soon be in order.”

I rose, stretched hard, pulled some of the kinks out of my muscles, seated myself on a nearby rock to defeat a small dizziness.

"All right," I said, reaching for a cigarette and finding all of them crushed. "How about your considering whatever you are permitted to say and then saying it?”

Charv withdrew a package of cigarettes-my brand-from his pouch and passed it to me.

"If you must," he said.

I nodded, opened it, lit one.

"Thank you," I said, returning them.

"Keep the pack," he said. "I am a pipe smoker of sorts. You, by the way, are more in need of rest and nourishment than nicotine. I am monitoring your heartbeat, blood pressure and basal metabolism rate on a small device I have with me-”

"Don't let it worry you, though," said Ragma, helping himself to a cigarette and producing a light from somewhere. "Charv is a hypochondriac. But I do think we ought to get back to our vessel before we talk. You are still not out of danger.”

"Vessel? What sort? Where is it?”

"About a quarter of a mile from here," Charv offered, "and Ragma is correct. It will be safer if we depart this place immediately.”

"I'll have to take your word for it," I said. "But you were looking for me-me specifically-weren't you? You knew my name. You seem to know something about me...”

"Then you have answered your own question," Ragma replied. "We had reason to believe you were in danger and we were correct.”

"How? How did you know?”

They glanced at each other.

"Sorry," Ragma said. "That's another.”

"Another what?”

"Thing we are not permitted to say.”

"Who does your permitting and forbidding?”

"That's another.”

I sighed. "Okay. I guess I'm up to walking that far. If I'm not, you'll know in a hurry.”

"Very good," said Charv as I got to my feet.

I felt steadier this time up, and it must have been apparent. He nodded, turned and began moving away with a very unkangaroolike gait. I followed, and Ragma remained at my side. He maintained a bipedal posture this time.

The terrain was fairly level, so the going was not too bad. After a couple of minutes’

movement, I was even able to work up some enthusiasm at the thought of the peanut- butter sandwich. Before I could comment on my improved condition, however, Ragma shouted something in Alienese.

Charv responded and took off at an accelerated pace, almost tripping over the lower extremities of his disguise.

Ragma turned to me. "He is going ahead to warm things up," he said, "for a quick liftoff. If you are capable of moving faster, please do so.”

I complied as best I could, and "Why the rush?" I inquired.

"My hearing is quite sensitive," he said, "and I have just detected the fact that Zeemeister and Buckler are now airborne. This would seem to indicate that they are either looking for you or departing. It is always best to plan for the worst.”

"I take it that they are my uninvited guests and that their names are something you are permitted to say. What do they represent?”

"They are doodlehums.”

"Doodlehums?”

"Antisocial individuals, intentional circumventors of statutes.”

"Oh, hoodlums. Yes, I guessed that much on my own. What can you tell me about them?”

"Morton Zeemeister," he said, "indulges in many such activities. He is the heavy one with the pale fur. Normally, he remains away from the scene of his hoodling, employing agents to execute it for him. The other, Jamie Buckler, is one such. He has hoodled well for Zeemeister over the years and was recently promoted by him to guard his body.”

My own body was protesting the increased pace at that point, so I was not immediately certain whether the humming in my ears-was the product of a tidal bore in my river of red stuff or the sound of the sinister bird. Ragma removed all doubt.

"They are coming this way," he said, "quite rapidly. Are you able to run?”

"I'll try," I said, forcing myself.

The ground dipped, rose again. Ahead, then, I was able to make out what I took to be their vessel: a squashed bell of dull metal, duller squares that might be ports spotted irregularly about its perimeter, an opened hatch. . . My lungs were working like a concertina at a Polish wedding and I felt the first spray of the tide of darkness within my head. I was going to go under again, I knew.

Then came that familiar flicker, as of having taken a step back from reality. I knew that my blood was pooling in my guts, leaving me high and dry, and I resented my subservience to the hydraulics involved. I heard gunshots above the growing roar, as on the soundtrack for a distant show, and even this was not sufficient to draw me back.

When your own adrenalin lets you down, who is there left to trust?

I wanted very badly to make it to that hatch and through it. It was not all that distant. I knew now that I would not. An absurd way to die. This near, and not understanding anything. . .

"I'm going!" I shouted toward the bounding form at my side, not knowing whether the words really came out that way.

The sounds of gunfire continued, tiny as elfin popcorn. Fewer than forty feet remained, I was certain, as I judge local distances in terms of horseshoe-court lengths. Raising my arms to shield my face, I fell, not knowing whether I had been hit, scarcely able to care, forward, into a smooth blank that canceled the ground, the sound, the trouble, my flight.

Thus, thus, so and thus: awakening as a thing of textures and shadings: advancing and retreating along a scale of soft/dark, smooth/shadow, slick/bright: all else displaced and translated to this: the colors, sounds and balances a function of these two.

Advance to hard and very bright. Fall back to soft and black...

"Do you hear me, Fred?"-the twilight velvet.

"Yes"-my glowing scales.

"Better, better, better. . .”

"What/who?”

"Closer, closer, that not a sound betray .. .”

"There?”

"Better, that cease the subvocals . . .”

"I do not understand.”

"Later for that. But one thing, a thing to say: Article 7224, Section C. Say it.”

"Article 7224, Section C. Why?”

"If they wish to take you away-and they will-say it. But not why. Remember.”

"Yes, but-”

"Later for that . . .”

A thing of textures and shadings: bright, brighter, smooth, smoother. Hard. Clear.

Lying there in my sling during Wakeful Period One: "How are you feeling now?" Ragma asked.

"Tired, weak, still thirsty.”

"Understandable. Here, drink this.”

"Thanks. Tell me what happened. Was I hit?”

"Yes, you were hit twice. Fairly superficial. We have repaired the damage. The healing should be complete in a matter of hours.”

"Hours? How many have passed since we departed?”

"Three, approximately. I carried you aboard after you fell. We lifted off, leaving your assailants, the continent, the planet, behind. We are in orbit about your world now, but we will be departing it shortly.”

"You must be stronger than you look to have carried me.”

"Apparently so.”

"Where do you intend taking me from here?”

"To another planet-a most congenial one. The name would mean nothing to you.”

"Why?”

"Safety and necessity. You seem to be in a position to provide information that could be very helpful in an investigation with which we are connected. We wish to obtain that information, but there are others who would like to have it also! Because of them, you would be in danger on your own planet. So, for purposes of insuring your safety as well as furthering our inquiry, the simplest thing is to remove you.”

"Ask me. I'm not ungrateful for the rescue. What do you want to know? If it is the same thing Zeemeister and Buckler wanted, though. I'm afraid I can't be of much help.”

"We are operating under that assumption. We believe that the information we require of you exists at an unconscious level, however. The best means of extracting something of that sort is through the offices of a good telepathic analyst. There are many such in the place we will be visiting.”

"How long will we be there?”

"You will remain there until we have completed our investigation.”

"And how long will that take?”

He sighed and shook his head.

"At this point it is impossible to say.”

I felt the soft blackness brush like the tail of a passing cat against me. Not yet! No . . . I couldn't just let them haul me off that way for an indefinite leave of absence from everything I knew. It was in that moment that I appreciated the deathbed peeve-loose ends, all the little things that should be wrapped up before you go away: write that letter, settle up those accounts, finish the book on the night table . . . If I dropped out at this point in the semester, it would screw me up academically, financially-and who would buy my explanation? No. I had to stop them from taking me away. But the smooth to soft shadings were on the rise once more. I had to be quick.

"I'm sorry," I managed, "but that is impossible. I can't go with . . .”

"I am afraid that you must. It is absolutely necessary," he said.

"No," I said, panicking, fighting against fading before I could settle this. "No-you can't.”

"I believe a similar concept exists in your own jurisprudence. You call it 'protective custody.' “

"What about Article 7224, Section C?" I blurted out, feeling my speech slip over into a slur as my eyes fell closed.

"What did you say?”

"You heard me," I remember muttering. "Seven . . . two . . . two . . . four. Sec . . . tion .

. . C . . . That's why...”

And then, again, nothing.

The cycles of awareness bore me back-to consciousness or within spitting distance of it-several times more before I stuck at something approaching full wakefulness and filled it with California-watching. It was by degrees that I became aware of the argument that filled the air, obtaining its content in a detached, academic sort of way. They were upset over something that I had said.

Oh yes . . .

Article 7224, Section C. It had to do, I gathered, with the removal of intelligent creatures from their home planets without their consent. Part of a galactic treaty to which my rescuers' worlds were signatory, it was the closest thing to an interstellar constitution that they had. There was, however, sufficient ambiguity in the present situation to make for a debatable issue, in that there was also provision for removal without consent for a variety of overriding causes, such as quarantine for species protection, non-military reprisal for violations of certain other provisions, a kind of sensitive catchall for "interstellar security" and several more along these lines, all of which they discussed and rediscussed at great length. I had obviously touched on a delicate area, especially in light of the recency of their initial contact with Earth. Ragma kept insisting that if they chose one of the exceptions as controlling and removed me on that basis, their legal department would back them up. If it ever actually came to a point where an adjudication became necessary and they were reversed, he felt that he and Charv would not be held especially liable for their interpretation of the law, in that they were field operatives rather than trained legal personnel. Charv, meanwhile, maintained that it was obvious that none of the exceptions applied and that it would be even more obvious what they had done.

Better, he decided, to let the telepathic analyst they employed implant the desire to cooperate within my mind. There were several, he was certain, who could be persuaded to solve their problem in that fashion. But this irritated Ragma. It would be a clear violation of my rights under another provision, as well as concealment of the evidence of their violation under this one. He would have no part of it. If they were going to move me, he wanted a defense other than concealment. So they reviewed the exceptions again, pondering each word, letting the words talk to each other, recalling past cases, sounding the while like Jesuits, Talmudists, dictionary editors or disciples of the New Criticism.

We continued to orbit the Earth.

It was not until much later that Charv interrupted things with a question that had been bothering me all along: "Where did he learn about Article 7224, anyway?”

They repaired to the sling, interrupting my view of storm patterns off Cape Hatteras.

Seeing that my eyes were open, they nodded and gestured in what I believe they intended as a pantomime of good will and concern.

"Have you been resting well?" Charv inquired.

"Quite.”

"Water?”

"Please.”

I drank some, then: "Sandwich?" he asked.

"Yes. Thanks.”

He produced one and I began eating.

"We have been quite concerned over your well-being-and about doing the right thing in your case.”

"That is good of you.”

"We have been wondering about something that you said a while back, dealing with our offer to provide you with sanctuary during a fairly routine investigation we will be conducting on your planet. It seemed as if you cited a section of the Galactic Code just before you dropped off to sleep last time. But you mumbled somewhat and we could not be certain. Was this the case?”

"Yes.”

"I see," he said, adjusting his sunglasses. "Would you mind telling us how you became acquainted with its provisions?”

"Such things travel quickly in academic circles," I offered, which was the best response I could locate in my supply of misleading statements.

"It is possible," said Ragma, dropping back into whatever they had been speaking earlier. "Their scholars have been working on translations. They may be completed by now and circulating about their universities. It is not my department, so I cannot be certain.”

"And if somebody has put together a course on the subject, this one has probably taken it," said Charv. "Yes. Unfortunate.”

"Then you must be aware," Charv continued, switching back to English and aiming it in my direction, "that your planet is not yet signatory to the agreement.”

"Of course," I replied. "But then, my concern is really with your own actions under its provisions.”

"Yes, of course," he said, glancing at Ragma.

Ragma moved nearer, his unblinking wombat eyes holding something like a glare.

"Mister Cassidy," he said, "let me put it as simply as possible. We are law officers- cops, if you like-with a job to do. I regret that we cannot give you the particulars, as it would probably make it much easier to obtain your cooperation. As it is, your presence on your planet would represent a distinct impediment to us, while your absence would make things considerably simpler. As we have already told you, if you remain you will be in some danger. Bearing this in mind, it seems obvious that we would both be best served if you would agree to a small vacation.”

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Then perhaps," he went on, "I may appeal to your venality as well as your much- lauded primate adventuresomeness. A trip like this would probably cost you a fortune if you could arrange it yourself, and you would have an opportunity to see sights none of your kind has ever witnessed before.”

It did get through to me, that. At any other time I would not have hesitated. But my feelings had just then sorted themselves out. It went without saying that something was amiss and that I was a part of it. But it was more than the world that was out of whack.

Something that I did not understand had happened/was happening to me. I grew convinced that the only way I could discover it and remedy or exploit it was to stay home and do my own investigating. I was doubtful that anyone else's would serve my ends as I would have them served.

So: "I am sorry," I repeated.

He sighed, turned away, looked out the port and regarded the Earth.

Finally: "Yours is a very stubborn race," he said.

When I did not respond, he added, "But so is mine. We must return you if you insist.

But I will find a way to achieve the necessary results without your cooperation.”

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"If you are lucky," he said, "you may live to regret vour decision.”

Chapter 5

Hanging there, tensing and untensing my muscles to counteract the pendulum effect of the long, knotted line, I examined the penny on which Lincoln faced to the left. It looked precisely the way a penny would look if I were regarding it in a mirror, reversed lettering and all. Only I was holding it in the palm of my hand.

Beside/below me, where I dangled but a couple of feet above the floor, hummed the Rhennius machine: three jet-black housings set in a line on a circular platform that rotated slowly in a counterclockwise direction, the end units each extruding a shaft-one vertical, one horizontal-about which passed what appeared to be a Moebius strip of a belt almost a meter in width, one strand half running through a tunnel in the curved and striated central unit, which faintly resembled a wide hand cupped as in the act of scratching.

Pumping my knees, feet braced against the terminal knot, I set up a gentle swaying that bore me, moments later, back above the ingoing aperture of the middle component.

Lowering myself, extending my arm, I dropped the penny onto the belt, was halted at the end of my arc, began the return swing. Still crouched and reaching, I snared the penny as it emerged.

Not what I had expected. Not at all, and no indeed.

In that its first journey through the innards of the thing had reversed the coin, I had assumed that running it through the works again would return it to normal. Instead, I now held a metal disk on which the design was properly oriented but was incised, intaglio- like, rather than raised. This applied to both sides, and in the place of the milling the edges were step-recessed, like a train wheel.

Curiouser and curiouser. I would simply have to do it again to see what happened next.

I straightened, gripped the line with my knees, began to redirect my errant arc.

For a moment I glanced up into the gloom where my thirty-foot puppet string reached to its shadowy bar. An I-beam, too near the ceiling to mount, I had traversed it aardvark- style-ankles locked above, letting my fingers do the walking. I wore a dark sweater and trousers and had on thin-soled suede boots. I had carried the line coiled about my left shoulder until I had reached a point as near to being directly above the apparatus as was possible.

I had made my way in through a skylight I had had to jimmy after cutting away some grillwork and jump-wiring three alarms in a fashion that produced a small nostalgia for my abandoned major in electrical engineering. The hall below was dim, the only illumination provided by a series of floor-level spots that encircled the display and concentrated their beams upward upon it. A low guardrail enclosed the machine, and concealed electric eyes fenced it invisibly. Sensor plates within the floor and the platform would betray a footstep. There was a television camera bolted to my beam. I had turned it slowly, slightly, so that it was still focussed on the display-only farther southward, as I planned to descend on the north side where the belt was flattest just before it reached the central unit-a guesstimate, from those four courses in TV production. There were guards in the building, but one had just made his rounds and I planned to be quick. All plans have their limits and hazards, which is why insurance companies get rich.

The night was cloudy and a very cold wind went around in it. My breath flapped ghostly wings and flew away. The only witness to my finger-numbing exercises on the roof was a tired-looking cat crouched in the scuttleway. The chill had been about when I had arrived in town the night before, a journey resulting from a decision I had reached on Hal's couch the previous day.

After Charv and Ragma had, at my request, set me down about fifty miles out of town during the dark of the moon, I had hitched rides and gotten back to my neighborhood well after midnight. And a good thing it was that I had.

There is a side street that dead-ends into my own, and my building is right across the way from it. As you proceed along that side street the windows of my apartment are in plain sight. More naturally in night's dark and quiet than they would by day, my eyes sought them. Dark, as they should be. Blank. Vacant.

But then, half a minute later, as I neared the corner, came a small flare, a tiny flickering, blackness again.

Any other time and I would have dismissed it if I had noted it at all. It could very easily have been a reflection or an imagining. Yet. . .

Yes. But recently recuperated and still full of warnings, I would be a fool to be anything but wary. Neither a fool nor a raisin be, I told myself as I put on my waries, turned right and headed away.

I walked a pair of blocks to and a couple from, coming at last up the alley behind my building. There was a rear entranceway, but I avoided it, making my way to a place where I could go from pipe to sill to ledge to fire escape, which I did.

In a very brief while I was on the roof and moving across it. Then down the pipe to the place I had stood when talking with Paul Byler. I edged forward from there and peered in my bedroom window. Too dark to tell anything for certain. It was the other window, though, that had framed what might have been the lighting of a cigarette.

I rested my fingertips on the window, pressed firmly, then exerted a steady pressure upward. It slid open without a sound, the reward of consideration. Being an erratic sleeper and fond of my nighttime gambols, I kept the running grooves heavily waxed so as not to disturb my roommate.

Leaving my shoes behind on the ledge, I entered and stood still, ready to flee.

I waited a minute, breathing slowly, through my mouth. Quieter that way. Another minute . . .

A creak from my uneasy easy chair reached me, an effect it always manages when its occupant uncrosses and recrosses his legs.

That would place a person to the right of the desk in the front room, in a position near to the window.

"Is there any coffee in that thing?" a harsh voice managed softly.

"I think so" came the reply.

"Then pour me some.”

Sounds of a thermos being unstoppered. Pouring. A few scrapes and bumps. A muttered "Thanks." They placed the other fellow at the desk itself.

A slurp. A sigh. The scratch of a match. More silence.

Then: "Wouldn't it be funny if he'd gotten himself killed?”

A snort.

"Yeah. Not bloody likely, though.”

"How can you say that?”

"He stinks of luck, or something like it. And he's such an odd one to begin with.”

"That I'll buy. Wish he'd hurry up and find his way home.”

"That makes for two of us.”

The one in the easy chair got to his feet and moved to the window. After a time he sighed. "How long, how long, 0 Lord?”

"It will be worth the wait.”

"I'm not denying it. But the sooner we catch hold of him the better.”

"Of course. I'll drink to that.”

"Hear! What've you got there?”

"A bit of brandy.”

"You've had that all along and you've been giving me this black mud?”

"You kept asking for coffee. Besides, I just found it a while back.”

"Pass it here.”

"There's another glass. Let's be genteel. It's good stuff.”

"Pour!”

I heard the cork come out of my Christmas bottle. A few clinks followed and footfalls.

"Here you are.”

"Smells good.”

"Doesn't it?”

"To the Queen!”

A shuffling of feet. A single clink.

"God save 'er!”

They reseated themselves after that and grew silent once again. I stood there for perhaps a quarter of an hour, but nothing more was said.

So I edged my way to the corner rack, found some money I had left behind still in its place in the boot, removed it, pocketed it, removed myself back to the ledge.

I closed the window as carefully as I had opened it, retreated to the roof, cut across the path of a black cat who arched his back and spat-doubtless superstitious, not that I blamed him-and made my way away.

After scouting Hal's building for loiterers other than myself and not spotting any, I rang his place from the booth on the corner. I was somewhat surprised to have my call answered in a matter of seconds.

"Yeah?”

"Hal?”

"Yeah. Who's this?”

"Your old buddy who climbs things.”

"Hoo boy! What kind of trouble are you in, anyway?”

"If I knew that I'd have something for my pains. Can you tell me anything about it?”

"Probably nothing important. But there are some small things that might-”

"Listen, may I come over?”

"Sure, why not?”

"Now, I mean. I hate to be a bother, but-”

"No trouble. C'mon up.”

"Are you all right?”

"Matter of fact, no. Mary and I had a little difference of opinion and she's spending the weekend at her mother's. I'm half stoned, which leaves me half sober. Which is enough.

You tell me your troubles and I'll tell you mine.”

"It's a deal. I'll be there in half a minute.”

"Great. See you then.”

So I cradled it, walked over, went in, buzzed his number and got admitted. Moments later I was knocking on his door.

"Prompt, oh prompt," he said, swinging it wide and stepping aside. "Enter, pray.”

"In which order?”

"Oh, bless this house, by all means, first. It could use a little grace.”

"Bless," I said, stepping in. "Sorry to hear you got troubles.”

"They'll pass. It started out with a burnt dinner and being late for a show, that's all.

Stupid thing. I thought it was her when the phone rang. I guess I'll have to do my apologizing tomorrow. The hangover should make me sound exceptionally repentant.

What're you drinking?”

"I don't really . . . Oh, what the hell! Whatever you've got there.”

"A drop of soda in a sea of Scotch.”

"Make it the other way around," I said, moving on into the living room and settling in a big, soft, tilled chair.

Moments later Hal came in, handed me a tall glass from which I took a healthy slug, sat down across from me, tasted his own, then said, "Have you committed any especially monstrous acts lately?”

I shook my head.

"Always the victim, never the victor. What have you heard?”

"Nothing, really. It's all been implication and inference. People have been asking me a lot about you but not telling me much.”

"People? Who?”

"Well, your adviser Dennis Wexroth was one-”

"What did be want?”

"More information about your individual project in Australia.”

"Like, for instance?”

"Like where. He wanted to know exactly where you were digging around.”

"What did you tell him?”

"That I didn't know, which was reasonably true. This was over the phone. Then he stopped by in person, and he had a man along with him-a Mister Nadler. The guy had an I.D. card saying he was an employee of the State Department. He acted as if they were concerned about the possibility of your removing artifacts from over there and creating an incident.”

I said something vulgar.

"Yeah, that's what I thought, too," he said. "He pressed me to rack my memory for anything you might have said concerning your itinerary. I was tempted to misremember, say, Tasmania. Got scared, though. Didn't know what they could do. So I just kept insisting you hadn't told me anything of your plans.”

"Good. When did this happen?”

"Oh, you'd been gone for over a week. I'd gotten your postcard from Tokyo.”

"I see. That's it, then?”

"Hell, no. That was just the beginning.”

I took another big swallow.

"Nadler was back the next day, asking whether I'd remembered anything else. He'd already given me a number to call if I did, or if I heard from you. So I was irritated. I said no and got rid of him. Then he came around again this morning to impress on me that it was to your benefit if I cooperated, that you might be in trouble and that I could help you by being honest. By the time they had learned of your difficulties at the Sydney Opera House, he said, you'd disappeared into the desert. What happened at the Sydney Opera House anyway?”

"Later, later. Get on with it. Or is that all?”

"No, no. I got irritated again, told him NO again and that was all so far as he was concerned. But there were other inquiries. I received at least half a dozen phone calls from people who claimed they just had to get in touch with you, that it was very important. None of them would say why, though. Or give me anything that could be used to trace them.”

"What do you mean? Did you try tracing them?”

"No, but the detective did.”

"Detective?”

"I was just getting to that part. This place has been broken into and ransacked on three separate occasions during the past two weeks. Naturally, I called the cops. I didn't see any connection with the calls, but after the third time the detective wanted me to tell him about anything unusual that had happened recently. So I mentioned that strange people kept calling and asking for a friend who was out of town. Several of them had left numbers, and he thought it was worth looking into. I talked with him yesterday, though, and he said nothing had turned up. All of them were from semipublic phones.”

"Was anything stolen?”

"No. That bothered him, too.”

"I see," I said, sipping slowly. "Has anyone approached you directly with unusual questions not involving me? Specifically, about that stone of Byler's?”

"No. But you might be interested in knowing that his lab was broken into while you were away. No one could really tell whether anything was missing. Getting back to your other question, though, while nobody approached me about the stone, someone seemed to be getting near for some purpose or other. Maybe it was tied in with the entry and searching here. I don't know. But for several days it seemed that I was being followed about. I didn't pay much attention at first. Actually, it wasn't until things started happening that I thought of him. The same man, not especially obtrusive, but always around-somewhere. Never came near enough for me to get a good look. At first I thought I was just being neurotic. Later, of course, he came to mind. Too late, though. He disappeared after the police started paying attention to me and to this building.”

He tossed off the rest of his drink and I finished mine.

"That pretty much summarizes things," he said. "Let me fix us a couple more of these, then you tell me what you know.”

"Go ahead.”

I lit a cigarette and pondered. There had to be a pattern to all this, and it seemed likely that the star-stone was the key. There were too magy subsidiary actions to try to separate, analyze, follow up individually. If I knew more about the stone, though, I felt that these recent happenings might begin to drift into truer perspective. Thus began my list of priorities.

Hal returned with the drinks, gave me mine, reseated himself.

"All right," he said, "considering everything that's been happening here. I'm ready to believe anything you've got to tell me.”

So I told him most of what had occurred since my departure.

"I don't believe you," he said when I had finished.

"I can't lend you my memories in any better condition.”

"Okay, okay," he said "It's weird. But then, so are you. No offense. Let me fog my brain a little more and I'll try to consider it. Right back.”

He went and freshened the drinks again. I was beyond caring. I had lost count during the time I'd been talking.

"You were being serious?" he finally said.

"Yes.”

"Then those fellows are probably still back at the apartment.”

"Possibly.”

"Why not call the police?”

"Hell, for all I know they may be the police.”

"Toasting the Queen that way?”

"Could be their old alma maters Homecoming Queen. I don't know. I'd just as soon no one knew I'm back till I've learned more and done more thinking.”

"Okay. Silence here. What can I do to help?”

"Think. You've been known to have an original idea every now and then. Come up with one.”

"All right," he said. "I have been thinking about it. Everything seems to go back to the star-stone facsimile. What is it about the thing that makes it so important?”

"I give up. Tell me.”

"I don't know. But let's consider everything that is known about it.”

"Okay. The original came to us on loan as part of that cultural exchange deal we've joined. It was described as a relic, a specimen of unknown utility-but most likely decorative-found among the ruins of a dead civilization. Seems to be synthetic. If so, it may be the oldest intelligently fashioned object in the galaxy.”

"Which makes it priceless.”

"Naturally.”

"If it were lost or destroyed here, we could be kicked out of the exchange program.”

"I suppose that is possible . . .”

" 'Suppose,' hell! We can. I looked it up. The library now has a full translation of the agreement, and I got curious enough to see what it said. A hearing would be held, and the other members would vote on the matter of our expulsion.”

"Good thing it hasn't been lost or destroyed.”

"Yeah. Great.”

"How could Byler have gotten access to it?”

"My guess is still the UN itself-that they approached him to create a duplicate for display purposes, he did it and then there was a mixup.”

"I can't see the mixup on something that important.”

"Then suppose it was intentional.”

"How so?”

"Say they loaned it to him, and instead of returning the original and a copy he returned two copies. I can see him as wanting to hang onto it and study it for as long as he could.

He could have given it back when he was finished or caught, whichever came first, and claimed he had made a simple error. No fuss could be raised, with the entire enterprise that clandestine. Or perhaps I am being too devious. Maybe he'd had it on a legitimate loan all the while, studying it at their request. Whichever, let us suppose that he'd had the original up until a while back.”

"All right, say that.”

"Then it vanished. Either it got mixed in and thrown out with some of the inferior replicas, or it was the one given to us in error. . .”

"To you, to you," I said, "and not in error.”

"Paul arrived at this conclusion, too," he continued, ignoring the assignment of guilt.

"He panicked, went looking and roughed us up in the process.”

"What precipitated his wising up?”

"Someone spotted the ringer and asked him for the real one. When he looked it wasn't there.”

"And he got dead.”

"You said the two men who questioned you in Australia as much as admitted having done him in as a by-product of questioning him.”

"Zeemeister and Buckler. Yes.”

"The undercover wombat told you they were hoodlums.”

"Doodlehums, but go ahead.”

"The UN informed the member nations-which is where the State Department comes into the picture in our case. Somewhere there was a tear in the beanbag, though, and Zeemeister decided to locate the stone first in order to claim a large ransom. Pardon me, a reward.”

"It does make a kind of surrealistic sense. Continue.”

"So we might have had it and everybody knows it. We don't know where it is, but nobody believes us.”

"Who is everybody?”

"UN officials, the Foggy Bottom boys, the doodlehums and the aliens.”

"Well, granting that the aliens have been informed and are actually assisting in the investigation, Charv and Ragma become a little more understandable-with their thing about security and all. But then, something else bothers me. They seemed awfully sure that I knew more than I thought I did concerning the stone's whereabouts. They even felt that a telepathic analyst might turn up some useful leads in my subconscious. I wonder what gave them that idea?”

"You've got me there. Perhaps they have eliminated almost everything else. And maybe they are right. It did seem to vanish rather strangely. I wonder. .. ?”

"What?”

"If you do know something useful, something you may have suppressed for some reason? Perhaps a good nontelepathic analyst could drag it out, too. Hypnosis, drugs . . .

Who knows? What about that Doctor Marko you used to go to?”

"It's a thought, but it would take a long while to convince him as to the reality of all the preliminaries he'd need to know before he could go to work. Might even think I've lost touch, trank me up and give me the wrong therapy. No. I'll hold off on that angle for now.”

"Where does that leave us?”

"Drunk," I said. "My higher cerebral centers all just moved off center.”

"Want me make some coffee?”

"No. Consciousness is losing six to nothing and I'd like to retire gracefully. Mind if I sleep on the couch?”

"Go ahead. I'll get you a blanket and a pillow.”

"Thanks.”

"Maybe we'll have some fresh ideas in the morning," he said, rising.

"Thinking them will be painful, whatever they are," I said, going over to the couch and kicking off my shoes. "Let there be an end to thought. Thus do I refute Descartes.”

I sprawled, not a cogito or a sum to my name.

Obliv- There was a teletype machine in a room at the back of my mind. It had never been used. Within the uncreation where the not-I didn't exist for a peaceful interval of non- time, however, it stuttered and spewed, synthesizing some recipient who resembled myself for purposes of pestering him...

: : : : : : : : : : : :

DO YOU HEAR ME. FRED?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

DO YOU HEAR ME. FRED?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

YES : : : : : : : : : : : :

GOOD : : : : : : : : : : : :

WHO ARE YOU?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

I AMXXXXXXXXXXXXX : : : : : : : : : : : :

DO YOU HEAR ME, FRED?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

YES. WHO ARE YOU?

I AMXXXXXX IXXXXXXXX ARTICLE 7224 SECTION C. I BROUGHT IT TO YOUR ATTENTION : : : : : : : : : : : :

ALL RIGHT : : : : : : : : : : : :

CAN YOU OBTAIN AN N-AXIAL INVERSION UNIT?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

NO : : : : : : : : : : : :

IT IS IMPORTANT : : : : : : : : : : : :

IT IS ALSO UNDEFINED : : : : : : : : : : : :

NECESSARY : : : : : : : : : : : :

WHAT THE HELL IS AN N-AXIAL INVERSION UNIT?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

TIME NAMES CORRESPONDENCESXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX THE RHENNIUS MACHINE. THAT MECHANISM : : : : : : : : : : : :

I KNOW WHERE IT IS. YES : : : : : : : : : : : :

GO TO THE RHENNIUS MACHINE. TEST ITS INVERSION PROGRAM : : : : : : : : : : : :

HOW?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

OBSERVE THE PROGRESSIVE TRANSFORMATIONS OF AN OBJECT PASSED THROUGH ITS MOBILATOR : : : : : : : : : : : :

WHAT IS A MOBILATOR?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

THE CENTRAL UNIT THROUGH WHICH ITS BELT MOVES : : : : : : : : : : : :

IMPOSSIBLE TO GET THAT CLOSE TO THE THING. IT IS UNDER GUARD : : : : : : : : : : : :

VITAL : : : : : : : : : : : :

WHY?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

TO REFORMULATEXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX TO REFORMXXXXXXXXXXXXX TOXXXXXXXX : : : : : : : : : : : :

DO YOU HEAR ME. FRED?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

YES : : : : : : : : : : : :

GO TO THE RHENNIUS MACHINE AND TEST ITS INVERSION PROGRAM : : : : : : : : : : : :

SUPPOSING I CAN DO IT. WHAT THEN?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

THEN GO AND GET DRUNK : : : : : : : : : : : :

PLEASE REPEAT : : : : : : : : : : : :

TEST THE INVERSION PROGRAM AND GO INTOXICATE YOURSELF : : : : : : : : : : : :

ANYTHING ELSE?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

SUBSEQUENT ACTIONS CONTINGENT UPON UNDETERMINED EVENTS : : : : : : : : : : : :

: : : : : : : : : : : :

WILL YOU DO THIS?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

WHO ARE YOU?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

IXXXXXXXXXXXXXSPEICUSXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXSPEICUSXXXXXXX XXXXSPEICUSPEICUSPEICUSPEICUSPEICUSPEICUSPEICUSPEICUSXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXEICUSPEIXXCUSPEXXI CUSXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXPECXXXUSPEIXXXXCUSPEICUSPEICUSPEICU SPEICUSPEICUSPEICUSPEICUSPEICUSPEICUSPEICUSPEICUSPEBCUSXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX I AM A RECORDINGXXXSPEICUSXXXXXXXXXX I AM A RECORDINGXXXSPEICUSXXXXXXXXXX I AM A RECORDINGXX : : : : : : : : : : : :

: : : : : : : : : : : :

IT FIGURES : : : : : : : : : : : :

WILL YOU DO AS I HAVE ASKED?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

WHY NOT?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

YOU INDICATE ASSENT?

: : : : : : : : : : : :

ALL RIGHT, RECORDING. ALL RIGHT. AFFIRMATIVE. I AM PROGRAMMED CURIOUS : : : : : : : : : : : :

VERY GOOD. THAT THEN IS ALLOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO -ion.

It raineth on the just and the unjust; likewise shineth the sun. I came around with the latter doing that thing, in my eyes, through the front window. And I must have been just- or just lucky-as I was not only unhung over but felt fairly good. I lay there for some time, listening to Hal's snores coming from the other room. Reaching a decision as to who and where I was, I rose and set a pot of coffee to gurgling in the kitchen and went to the bathroom to find some soap and a razor and do some other things.

Later, I had some juice, toast and a couple of eggs, took a cup of coffee back to the living room. Hal was still buzzing. I loafed on the sofa. I lit a cigarette. I drank coffee.

Caffeine, nicotine, the games the blood sugars play-I do not know what it was that pierced the dark bubble as I sat there assembling the morning and myself.

Whatever prompted it, the thing I had gotten in lieu of the usual unsolicited dreams returned to me between a puff and a sip, far clearer than my id-sponsored late late monster shows ever were.

Having decided earlier to accept the peculiar in the proper spirit, I confined my considerations to the matter of content. It made as much sense as any of a number of things I had recently experienced, and possessed the virtue of requiring a positive action on my part at a time when I was weary of being acted upon.

So I folded the blankets and placed them in a neat heap with the pillow on top. I finished my coffee, poured a second cup and turned the pot down to a simmer. I located some writing paper atop a miscellaneous chest of drawers and scrawled a note: "Hal- Thanks. I've a thing I'm off to pursue. It came to me last night. Quite peculiar. Will call in a day or so & let you know what comes of it. Hope everything is happily ever after again by then. -Fred. P.S. The coffee is on." Which covered everything I could think of. I left it on the other end of the sofa.

I got out and headed for the bus station. A long ride lay ahead. I would arrive too late, but the next day I would see the Rhennius machine during normal viewing hours and figure a way to get at it for a private showing later on.

And I did.

Voila! Lincoln stared to my right again and everything else seemed in its proper place.

I pocketed the cent, steadied myself, began to climb.

Halfway up, brassy bongs bloomed in my ears, my nervous system came unzipped and my arms turned to putty. The free end of the line was swinging widely. Perhaps it had struck something, or gotten into range of the camera. Academic, whichever.

Moments later, I heard a shouted, "Raise your hands!" which probably came to mind a lot more readily, say, than "Stop climbing that rope and come back down without touching the machine!”

I did raise them, too, rapidly and repeatedly.

By the time he was threatening to shoot, I was across the beam and eying the window.

If I could spring, catch hold, pull, vault, pass horizontally through the eighteen inch opening I had left myself and hit the roof rolling, I would have a head start with a variety of high routes before me. I would have a chance.

I tensed my muscles.

"I'll shoot!" he repeated, almost directly beneath me now.

I heard the shot and there was glass in the air as I moved.

Chapter 6

It was the sound of the steam, whistling through, rattling the ancient pipes, that drew me across the fine line to the place where identity surprises itself. I balked immediately and tried to go back, but the heating system wouldn't let me. In close-eyed preconsciousness I clung to the transitory pleasure of being without memory. Then I realized that I was thirsty. And then that something hard and uncomfortable was indenting my right side. I did not want to wake up.

But the circle of sensations widened, things fell together, the center held. I opened my eyes.

Yes . . .

I was lying on a mattress on the floor in the corner of a cluttered, gaudy room. Some of the clutter was magazines, bottles, cigarette butts and random articles of clothing; some of the gaud was paintings and posters that clung to the walls like stamps on a foreign parcel, bright and crooked. Strings of glass beads hung in a doorway to my right, catching what seemed like morning light from a large window directly across from me. A golden blizzard of dust fell through its rays, stirred perhaps by the donkey who was nibbling at the potted pot that occupied the window seat. From the sill, an orange cat blinked at me in yellow-eyed appraisal, then closed her eyes.

A few small traffic sounds came from a point beyond and below the window. Through the sun patterns on the streaked glass, I could make out the upper corner of a brick building sufficiently distant to indicate that a street did indeed lie between us. I made my first dry swallowing movement of the morning and realized again how thirsty I felt. The air was dry and rank with stale odors, some familiar, some exotic.

I shifted slightly, testing myself for aches. Not bad. A small throbbing from the frontal sinuses, not sufficient to herald a headache. I stretched then, feeling a fraction fitter.

I discovered the sharp object prodding my side to be a bottle, empty. I winced as I recalled how it had gotten that way. The party, oh yes . . . There had been a party . . .

I sat up. I saw my shoes. I put them on. I stood.

Water . . . There was a bathroom around the corner through the beads in the back. Yes.

Before I could move in that direction, the donkey turned, stared at me, advanced.

By a splinter of a second, I'd say, I saw what was coming coming, before it came.

"You are still fogged up," the donkey said, or seemed to say, the words ringing strangely in my head, "so go quench your thirst and wash your face. But do not use the window back there for an exit. It could result in difficulties. Please return to this room when you have finished. I have some things to tell you.”

From a place beyond surprise, I said, "All right," and I went on back and ran the water.

There was nothing especially suspicious beyond the bathroom window. No one in sight to be the wiser, no one to do anything about it if I decided to cross over to the next building, then up, up and away. I had no intention of doing it just then, but it made me wonder whether the donkey might be something of an alarmist.

The window . . . My mind went back to that bar of black, to the snap of the gun, to the glass. I had torn my jacket on the frame and scraped my shoulder where I hit. I'd kept rolling, rolled to my feet and taken off running, crouched....

An hour later I was in a bar in the Village carrying out the second part of my instructions. Not too quickly, though, as-the fugitive feeling was still with me and I wanted to hang onto my faculties long enough to regroup myself emotionally.

Consequently, I ordered a beer and sipped it slowly.

Small gusts of wind had been tumbling bits of paper along the streets. Random flakes of snow had angled by, turning to damp splotches wherever they touched. Later, the middle state was omitted and cold raindrops alternately sprayed, dripped, ceased altogether, drifted in patches of mist.

The wind whistled as it slipped about the door, and even with my jacket on I felt chilly.

So ten or fifteen minutes later when I'd finished the beer, I went looking for a warmer bar. That was what I told myself, though from some more primitive level the flight impulse still operated, assisting in the decision.

I hit three more bars in the next hour, drinking one beer per and moving on. Along the way, I stopped in a package store and picked up a bottle, as it was late and I was loath to go too blotto in public. I began thinking about where I would spend the night. I'd get a taxi by and by, I decided, let the driver find me a hotel and complete the intoxication business there. No sense in speculating what the results would be and no need to hurry things along. At the moment I wanted people about me, their voices, walls that echoed a tinny music. While my last memories of Australia were messy and blurred, I had been brighteyed and strung tight as a tennis racket on departing the hall. I could still hear the snap and the brittle notes of the glass. It is not good to think about having been shot at.

The fifth bar that I hit was a happy find. Three or four steps below street level, warm, pleasantly dim, it contained sufficient patrons to satisfy my need for social noises but not so many that anyone begrudged my taking up a table against the far wall. I took off my jacket and lit a cigarette. I would stay awhile.

So it was there that he found me, half an hour or so later. I had succeeded in relaxing considerably, forgetting a bit and achieving a state of warmth and comfort, let the wind go whistle, when a passing figure halted, turned and settled onto the seat across from me.

I did not even look up. My peripheral vision told me it was not a cop and I did not feel like acknowledging an unsolicited presence, especially the likely weirdo.

We sat that way-unmoving-for almost half a barbed minute. Then something flashed on the tabletop and I looked down, automatically.

Three totally explicit photos lay before me: two brunettes and a blonde.

"How'd you like to warm up with something like that on a cold night like this?" came a voice that snapped my mind through years to alertness and my eyes forty-five degrees upward.

"Doctor Merimee!" I said.

"Ssh!" he hissed. "Pretend you're looking at the pictures!”

The same old trench coat, silk scarf and beret . . . The same long cigarette holder . . .

Eyes of unbelievable magnitude behind glasses that still gave me the impression of peering into an aquarium. How many years had it been?

"What the devil are you doing here?" I said.

"Gathering material for a book, of course. Dammit! Look at the pictures, Fred! Pretend to study them. Really. Trouble afoot. Yours, I think.”

So I looked back at the glossy ladies.

"What kind of trouble?" I said.

"There's a fellow seems to be following you.”

"Where is he now?”

"Across the street. In a doorway last I saw him.”

"What's he look like?”

"Couldn't really tell. He's dressed for the weather. Bulky coat. Hat pulled down. Head bent forward. Average height or a bit less. Possibly kind of husky.”

I chuckled.

"Sounds like anybody. How do you know he's following me?”

"I caught sight of you over an hour ago, several bars back. That one was fairly crowded, though. Just as I'd started toward you, you got up to leave. I called out, but you didn't hear me over the noise. By the time I'd paid up and gotten out myself you were part way up the street. I started after you and saw this fellow come out of a doorway and do the same. I thought nothing of it at first, but you did wander awhile and he was making all the same turns. Then when you found another bar, he just stopped and stared at it.

Then he went into a doorway, lit a cigar, coughed several times and waited there, watching the place. So I walked on by as far as the corner. There was a phone booth, and I got inside and watched him while I pretended to make a call. You didn't stay in that place very long, and when you came out and moved on, he did the same. I held off approaching you for two more bars, just to be positive. But I am convinced now. You are being followed.”

"Okay," I said. "I buy that.”

"Your casual acceptance of the situation causes me to believe that it was not wholly unexpected.”

"Exactly.”

"Does it involve anything I might be able to help you with?”

"Not in terms of the headache's causes. But possibly the immediate symptoms . . .”

"Like getting you away from here without his noting it?”

"That is what I had in mind.”

He gestured with a bandaged hand.

"No problem. Take your time with your drink. Relax. Consider it done. Pretend to study the merchandise.”

"Why?”

"Why not?”

"What happened to your hand?”

"Accident, sort of, with a butcher knife. Have they graduated you yet?”

"No. They're still working on it.”

A waiter came-by, deposited a napkin and a drink before him, took his money, glanced at the photos, gave me a wink and moved back toward the bar.

"I thought I had you cornered in History when I left," he said, raising the drink, taking a sip, pursing his lips, taking another. "What happened?”

"I escaped into Archaeology.”

"Shaky. You had too many of the Anthro and Ancient History requirements for that to last long.”

"True. But it provided a resting place for the second semester, which was all I needed.

In the fall they started a Geology program. I mined that for a year and a half. By then, several new areas had opened up.”

He shook his head.

"Exceptionally absurd," he said.

"Thank you.”

I took a big, cold swallow.

He cleared his throat.

"How serious is this situation, anyway?”

"Offhand, I'd say it's fairly serious-though it seems to be based on a misunderstanding.”

"I mean, does it involve the authorities-or private individuals?”

"Both, it seems. Why? You having second thoughts about helping me?”

"No, of course not! I was trying to estimate the opposition.”

"I'm sorry," I said. "I guess I do owe you an appraisal of the risk . . .”

He raised a hand as if to stop me, but I went on anyway.

"I have no idea who that is outside. But at least a couple people involved in the whole business seem to be dangerous.”

"All right, that is sufficient," he said. "I am, as always, totally responsible for my own actions, and I choose to assist you. Enough!”

We drank on it. He rearranged the pictures, smiling.

"I really could fix you up for tonight with one of them," he said, "if you wanted.”

"Thanks. But tonight's my night for getting drunk.”

"They are not mutually exclusive pastimes.”

"They are tonight.”

"Well," he said, shrugging, "I'd no intention to force anything on you. It is just that you aroused my hospitality. Success often does that.”

"Success?”

"You are one of the few successful persons I know.”

"Me? Why?”

"You know precisely what you are doing and you do it well.”

"But I don't really do much of anything.”

"And of course the quantity means nothing to you, nor the weight others place upon your actions. In my eyes, that makes you a success.”

"By not giving a damn? But I do, you know.”

"Of course you do, of course you do! But it is a matter of style, an awareness of choice-”

"Okay," I said. "Observation acknowledged and accepted in the proper spirit. Now-”

"-and that makes us kindred souls," he went on. "For I am just that way myself.”

"Naturally. I knew it all along. Now about getting me out of here . . .”

"There is a kitchen with a back door to it," he said. "They serve meals here during the day. We will go out that way. The barman is a friend of mine. No problem there. Then I will take you a roundabout way to my place. There is a party should be going on there now. Enjoy as much as you want of it and sleep wherever you find a warm corner.”

"Sounds very inviting, especially the corner. Thanks.”

We finished our drinks and he put the ladies back in his pocket. He went to talk with the bartender and I saw the man nodding. Then he turned and gestured with his eyes toward the rear. I met him at the door to the kitchen.

He guided me through the kitchen and out the back door into an alleyway. I turned up my collar against the continuing drizzle and followed him off to the right. We turned left at an intersecting alley, passed among the dark shapes of trash containers, splashed through a lake of a puddle that soaked my socks and emerged near the middle of the next block.

Three or four blocks and twice as many minutes later, I followed him up the stairs in the building that held his quarters. The dampness had raised a musty smell and the stairs creaked beneath us. As we ascended, I heard faint sounds of music mixed in with voices and a bit of laughter.

We followed the sounds, coming at last to his door. We entered, he performed a dozen or so introductions and took my coat. I found a glass and some ice and some mix, took it and myself and my bottle to a chair and sat down, to talk, watch and hope that enjoyment was contagious while I drank myself into the big blank place that was waiting somewhere for me.

I found it eventually, of course, but not before seeing the party through to the dust-and- ashes stage. As everyone else present was headed along paths that led in the same direction, I did not feel too far removed from the action. Through the haze, the sound, the booze, everything came to seem normal, appropriate and unusually bright, even the re- entrance of Merimee, clad only in a garland of bay leaves and mounted on the small gray donkey that made its home in one of the back rooms. A grinning dwarf preceded him with a pair of cymbals. For a while, nobody seemed to notice. The procession halted before me.

"Fred?”

"Yes?”

"Before I forget, if you should oversleep in the morning and I'm gone when you get up, the bacon is in the lower drawer on the right in the refrigerator, and I keep the bread in the cupboard to the left. The eggs are in plain sight. Help yourself.”

"Thanks. I'll remember that.”

"One other thing. . .”

He leaned forward and lowered his voice.

"I've been doing a lot of thinking," he said.

"Oh?”

"About this trouble in which you find yourself?”

"Yeah?”

"I do not know quite how to put it . . . But . . . Do you think it possible you could be killed as a result?”

"I believe so.”

"Well-only if it grows extremely pressing, mind you-but I have some acquaintances of a semisavory sort. If . . . If it becomes necessary for your own welfare that some individual predecease you, I would like you to have my phone number committed to memory. Call if you must, identify him and mention where he can be found. I am owed a few favors. That can be one.”

"I . . . I don't really know what to say. Thank you, of course. I hope I don't have to take you up on it. I never expected-”

"It is the least I could do to protect your Uncle Albert's investment.”

"You knew of my Uncle Albert? Of his will? You never mentioned-”

"Knew of him? Al and I were schoolmates at the Sorbonne. Summers we used to run arms to Africa and points east. I blew my money. He hung onto his and made more. A bit of a poet, a bit of a scoundrel. It seems to run in your family. Classical mad Irishmen, all of you. Oh yes, I knew Al.”

"Why didn't you mention this years ago?”

"You would have thought I was just pulling it on you to get you to graduate. That would not have been fair-interfering with your choices. Now, though, your present problems override my reticence.”

"But-”

"Enough!" he said. "Let there be revelry!”

The dwarf banged the cymbals mightily, and Merimee extended his hand. Someone placed a bottle of wine in it. He threw back his head and drew a long, deep swig. The donkey began to prance. A sleepy-eyed girl seated near the hanging beads suddenly sprang to her feet, tearing at her hair and blouse buttons, crying, "Evoe! Evoe!" the while.

"See you around, Fred.”

"Cheers.”

At least, that is sort of how I remember it. Oblivion had crept perceptibly nearer by then, was almost touching my collar. I leaned back and let it go to work.

Sleep, that unwrinkleth the drip-dry garment of concern, found me later at that dust- and-ashes place where the people go out one by one. I made it to the mattress in the corner, sprawled there and said good night to the ceiling.

Then- With the water streaming in the basin, lather on my face, Merimee's razor in my hand and me in the mirror, the mists fell away and there was Mt. Fuji. From this station, couched in the center of my most recent dark space, was the thing I had sought, freed by whatever arcane cue had just occurred:

DO YOU HEAR ME, FRED?

YES.

GOOD. THE UNIT IS PROPERLY PROGRAMMED. OUR PURPOSES WILL BE SERVED.

WHAT ARE OUR PURPOSES?

A SINGLE TRANSFORMATION IS ALL THAT WILL BE NECESSARY NOW.

WHAT SORT OF TRANSFORMATION?

PASSAGE THROUGH THE MOBILATOR OF THE N-AXIAL INVERSION UNIT.

YOU MEAN THE CENTRAL COMPONENT OF THE RHENNIUS MACHINE?

AFFIRMATIVE.

WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO RUN THROUGH IT?

YOURSELF.

MYSELF?

YOURSELF.

WHY?

VITAL TRANSFORMATION.

OF WHAT SORT?

INVERSION, OF COURSE.

WHY INVERT?

NECESSARY. IT WILL SET EVERYTHING IN PROPER ORDER.

BY REVERSING ME?

EXACTLY.

COULD IT BE DANGEROUS TO MY HEALTH?

NO MORE THAN MANY OTHER THINGS YOU DO IN THE COURSE OF YOUR DAILY AFFAIRS.

WHAT ASSURANCE HAVE I OF THIS?

MINE.

IF I RECALL CORRECTLY, YOU ARE A RECORDING.

I-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXI- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXI- XXXSPEICUSPEICUSPEICUSPEICUSPEICUSXXXXXXXXXXX PEICXXXUSPEIXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX NEVER MIND.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXDO YOU HEAR ME, FRED? DO YOU HEAR ME, FRED?

STILL HERE.

WILL YOU DO IT?

JUST ONCE THROUGH THE THING?

CORRECT. BY NO MEANS MORE THAN THAT.

WHY NOT? WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF I REPEATED IT?

I AM HAMPERED BY THE LACK OF AN ALGEBRAIC SOLUTION TO A GENERAL EQUATION OF THE FIFTH DEGREE.

JUST TELL ME IN PLAIN WORDS.

IT WOULD BE DANGEROUS TO YOUR HEALTH.

HOW DANGEROUS?

TERMINALLY SO.

I AM NOT CERTAIN I LIKE THE IDEA.

NECESSARY. IT WILL SET EVERYTHING IN PROPER ORDER.

YOU ARE SURE THAT IT WILL HAVE THE EFFECT OF MAKING THINGS CLEARER, OF BRINGING SOME ORDER TO THE PRESENT MUDDLED SITUATION?

OH YESXXXXXXXYESXXYESXXYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYE SXXXXXXXXYES.

I AM GLAD YOU ARE SO CONFIDENT.

THEN YOU WILL DO IT?

IT IS SUFFICIENTLY BIZARRE TO BE A HAIR OF THE DOG.

PLEASE CLARIFY.

YES. AFFIRMATIVE. I WILL DO IT.

YOU WILL NOT HAVE REGRETS.

LET US HOPE. WHEN SHOULD I BE ABOUT IT?

AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

ALL RIGHT I WILL THINK OF SOME WAY TO GET AT IT AGAIN.

THAT THEN IS ALLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO There it was, in its entirety. Instant replay-only in less time than it took me to raise my hand to my cheek and cut a highway through the lather. My nameless respondent had come through all right, and this time he had promised a satisfying result. I began to hum.

Even a shaky assurance of enlightenment is better than indefinite uncertainty.

When I had finished, I bypassed the front room and made my way into the kitchen. It was a narrow place, with a sink full of dirty dishes and the smell of curry in the air. I set about assembling a meal.

In the lower right-hand drawer of the refrigerator, lying atop the package of bacon, I discovered a note. It said simply: "Remember the number and what I said about calling it.”

So I ran the digits through my mind, over and over, as I scrambled, fried and toasted.

Then, just as I was sitting down to eat, the donkey came into the kitchen and stared at me.

"Coffee?" I suggested.

"Stop that!”

"What?”

"Those numbers. It is extremely irritating.”

"What numbers?”

"The ones you are thinking. They are swarming like insects.”

I spread marmalade on a piece of toast and took a bite.

"Go to hell," I said. "My uses for telepathic donkeys are limited, and what I do in the privacy of my own mind is my business.”

"The human mind, Mister Cassidy, is seldom worth the visit. I assure you I did not request the assignment of monitoring yours. It is obvious now that I erred in mentioning a creature courtesy you cannot appreciate. I suppose that I should apologize.”

"Go ahead.”

"You go to hell.”

I started in on the eggs and bacon. A minute or two passed.

"My name is Sibla," the donkey said.

I decided that I did not really care and went on eating.

"I am a friend of Ragma-and Charv.”

"I see," I said, "and they sent you to spy on me, to poke around in my mind.”

"That is not so. I was assigned the job of protecting you until you were fit to receive a message and act on it.”

"How were you to protect me?”

"By keeping you inconspicuous-”

"With a donkey following me around? Who briefed you, anyway?”

"I am aware of my prominence in this guise. I was about to explain that my task was to provide for your mental silence. As a telepath, I am capable of dampening your thought noises. It has not really been necessary, however, in that alcohol deadens them considerably. Still, I am here to shield you against premature betrayal of your position to another telepath.”

"What other telepath?”

"To be more honest than may be necessary, I do not know. It was decided at some level other than my own that there might be a telepath involved in this case. I was sent here both to keep you silent and to block any unfriendly telepath trying to reach you.

Also, I was to attempt to determine the identity and whereabouts of that individual.”

"Well? What happened?”

"Nothing. You were drunk and no one tried to reach you.”

"So the guess was wrong.”

"Possibly. Possibly not.”

I resumed eating. Between mouthfuls, I asked, "What is your level or rank, or whatever? The same as Charv's and Ragma's? Or are you higher up?”

"Neither," the donkey replied. "I am in budget analysis and cost accounting. I was drafted as the only available telepath capable of assuming this role.”

"Are you under any restrictions as to what you can tell me?”

"I was told to exercise my judgment and common sense.”

"Strange. Nothing else about this business seems particularly rational. They must not have had time to brief you fully.”

"True. There was quite a rush about it. I had to allow for travel time and the substitution.”

"What substitution?”

"The real donkey is tied up out back.”

"Uh-huh.”

"I am reading your thoughts, and I am not about to give you any answers Ragma refused you.”

"Okay. If your common sense and good judgment tell you to withhold information that may be vital to my safety, then by all means be sensible." I swallowed the final forkful.

"What's that message you mentioned?”

The donkey looked away.

"You had expressed some willingness to cooperate in the investigation, had you not?”

"I had-earlier," I said.

"You would not agree to go offworld to be examined by a telepathic analyst, however.”

"That is correct.”

"We were wondering whether you might be willing to allow me to attempt it-here, now.”

I took a sip of coffee.

"Have you had much training along these lines?”

"Just about every telepath knows something of the theory involved, and of course I possess a lifetime of experience with telepathy-”

"You are a cost accountant," I said. "Don't try to impress the natives.”

"All right. I am not trained for it. I think I can do it, though. So do the others, or I would not have been approached to try.”

"Who are the others?”

"Well. . . Oh hell! Charv and Ragma.”

"I've a feeling they are not proceeding according to the manual in this. Correct?”

"Field agents in their line of work possess a great deal of discretionary authority. They have to.”

I sighed and lit a cigarette.

"How old is the organization which employs you?" I said. When I detected hesitation, I added, "Surely there is no harm in telling me that.”

"I guess not. Several thousand-years, by your measure.”

"I see. In other words, it is one of the biggest, oldest bureacracies around.”

"I see in your mind what you are getting at, but-”

"Let me shape it anyway. As a student of business administration, I know that there is a law of evolution for organizations as stringent and inevitable as anything in life. The longer one exists, the more it grinds out restrictions that slow its own functions. It reaches entropy in a state of total narcissism. Only the people sufficiently far out in the field get anything done, and every time they do they are breaking half a dozen rules in the process.”

"I will grant you that that view is not without some merit. But in our case-”

"Your proposal violates some rule. I know it. I do not have to read your mind to know that you are uneasy about this whole affair because of it. Isn't that right?”

"I am not permitted to discuss policies and internal operating procedures.”

"Naturally," I said, "but I had to say it. Now tell me about this analysis business. How do you go about it?”

"It would be similar to the simple word association test with which you are familiar.

The difference is that I will do it from the inside. I will not have to guess at your reactions. I will know them at a primary level.”

"This seems to indicate that you cannot look directly into my subconscious.”

"That is correct. I am not that good. Ordinarily, I can only read your surface thoughts.

When I hit something this way, though, I should be able to keep pressing the feeling and follow it on down to where its roots are twisted.”

"I see. Then it does require considerable cooperation on my part?”

"Oh yes. It would take a real pro to push in against your will.”

"I guess I am fortunate there are none of them available.”

"I wish there were. I am certain that I am not going to enjoy it.”

I finished my coffee and poured another cup.

"What do you say to our doing it this afternoon?" Sibia asked.

"What's wrong with right now?”

"I would rather wait for your nervous system to return to normal. There are still some secondary effects from the beverages you consumed. They make scanning you more difficult.”

"Does that always hold?”

"By and large.”

"Interesting.”

I sipped more coffee.

"You are doing it again!”

"What?”

"Those numbers, over and over.”

"Sorry. Hard to keep them out.”

"That is not the reason!”

I stood. I stretched.

"Excuse me. I require the use of the facility again.”

Sibla moved to block my way, but I moved faster.

"You are not thinking of leaving, are you? Is that what you are masking?”

"I never said that.”

"You do not have to. I can feel it. You will be making a mistake if you do.”

I headed for the door, and Sibla turned quickly to follow.

"I will not permit you to go-not after the indignities I have suffered to get at that miserable knot of ganglia!”

"That's a nice way to talk!" I said. "Especially when you want a favor.”

I dashed up the hall and into the john. Sibla clattered after.

"We are doing you the favor! Only you are too stupid to realize it!”

" 'Uninformed' is the word-and that's your fault!”

I slammed the door, locked it.

"Wait! Listen! If you go, you could be in real trouble!”

I laughed. "I'm sorry. You came on too strong.”

I turned to the window, flung it wide.

"Then go, you ignorant ape! Throw away your chance at civilization!”

"What are you talking about?”

Silence.

Then: "Nothing. I am sorry. But you must realize that it is important.”

"I already know that. What I want to know is 'Why?' “

"I cannot tell you.”

"Then go to hell," I said.

"I knew you were not worth it," Sibla replied. "From what I have seen of your race, you are nothing but a band of barbarians and degenerates.”

I swung up onto the sill, crouched a moment while I estimated the distance.

"Nobody likes a smartass either," I said, and then I jumped.